A couple days ago, I told you about the superstition-themed party I planned for my friend’s Friday the 13th birthday party. I think it’s also a great theme idea for a Halloween party. I told you all about the party game, decorations, centerpieces, and menu, but I saved the tutorial for making the invitations for its own post. Well, here it is!

The invitation features what I think is the most prevalent superstition of all — a broken mirror. The framed mirror hangs on the invitation like a mirror hangs on a wall, and you just swing it out of the way in order to read the details behind it. This is easy to do with some ribbon and a brad, which ends up looking like a nail in the wall.

The first thing you’ll need is our downloadable template, which you can open in Microsoft Word in order to customize it with the details of your party.

Download our Superstition Party Invitation Template

Once you’ve got the template customized with your party details, print it out onto 8.5″ x 11″ white cardstock. Each invitation will have two pages — a front with the “Feeling lucky?” design on it and an inside page with the party details.

When you cut out all the pieces and stack them up, you may notice that the white paper core on the edges of the cardstock show up against the black frame, and doesn’t look quite right. To fix that, take a black Sharpie marker and run it along each edge of each piece.

This is a great trick for cleaning up the edges and makes a huge difference with just a little effort. If you don’t believe me, take a look at these before-and-after shots, showing how much nicer the edges look after marking them up.

Take some 1/8″ black satin ribbon and cut it to 5″ lengths (one piece for each invitation).

Now we’re going to prepare the front of our invitation (the part that swings). To do this, grab one of the front (“Feeling Lucky?”) invitation pages and flip it over. Put six double-sided adhesive photo mounting squares on it, one in each corner and two on the sides. Peel the backing off the two squares that are at the top of the invitation, and stick your ribbon to those squares, forming a loop that sticks up past the top of the paper about 1/2″.

Peel off the backing from the rest of the squares and stick the whole piece, face up, on a new piece of black cardstock. Make sure the top edge (where the ribbon is) lines up with one of the cut edges of the cardstock, so that you don’t have to trim that side and risk cutting the ribbon.

Trim the backing cardstock so that it’s the same size as the front piece. The result should be a neat and clean mirror with a ribbon at the top that’s sandwiched between two pieces of cardstock. This is the piece that’s going to be swinging in the finished invitation, so it needs to look good on the front and back.

Now grab some 8.5″ x 11″ sheets of black cardstock and use your paper trimmer to cut them in half. You’ll need one half-sheet for each invitation.

Put six more photo mounting squares on the back of the inner invitation page (the one with the party details on it), peel of the backing, and stick the page in the center of the half-sheet of black cardstock that you just cut. Make sure that the amount of cardstock showing on the left, right, and bottom are all the same, and any extra length is left at the top.

Take the finished front piece of your invitation and lay it on top of the back piece, and center it so that it looks good on the page and covers the party details completely.

Get a 1/4″ black brad and position it at the middle of the ribbon, as high as the ribbon will go. Make sure the ribbon goes between the two legs of the brad.

Push the brad through the back cardstock and open the legs in the back, securing the brad in place. The front mirror should now swing freely on the invitation.

This invitation is ready to be tucked into a standard 5 3/4″ x 8 3/4″ envelope. When your guests receive the invitation, they can swing the front mirror out of the way to read the party details inside.

For more inspiration and party ideas to go along with this invitation, be sure to check out my post about planning a superstition-themed Halloween party or Friday the 13th party!