Birthday invitation

Flash On

Four frames to a strip, and the fourth one is the only honest one.

Part of the TinselLux™ collection: invitations in stitched leather, tufted velvet, linen and satin.

The material is the card: linen with a visible weave, velvet with a nap, leather with its grain. It costs the same as every other invitation.

See the collection

A birthday invitation for a party that runs on film. One corner of the room is given over entirely to the camera: a stool, a lamp aimed through a white bedsheet, a tripod set to a ten-second timer, and a shoebox of sunglasses and plastic jewelry nobody admits to owning. The rest of the room is dark on purpose. Guests go up in twos and threes and come back holding a strip of four.

The first round is posed. The second round is better. By the third, someone has worked out exactly where to stand, has told everybody else, and is now directing. The strips get taped along the hallway in the order they were taken, which makes the evening readable from one end of the wall to the other. People take theirs when they leave, and the last one taped up stays there for a month.

What goes on it

Every line replaceable

The wording on this card

A birthday celebration for
Hannah's Nineteenth
Saturday, April 24, 2027 · 6 PM
THE SNAPSHOT PARLOR · 5 Exposure Lane, Lens Hollow, NY
Bring your best angle.

Every line of the wording is an example, and yours to replace. The title is painted into the artwork. Type your own and it is drawn again with your words.

What to actually tell people

Light one wall, not the room A clamp lamp pointed through a white sheet does more than every bulb in the ceiling. Turn the overheads off once the corner is set, and leave them off.
Mark the floor Tape an X where the stool goes and a second mark where the tripod stands. Ten seconds is enough time to get there, and not enough to argue about who sits in front.
One box of props, lid closed when it is not in use Sunglasses, a feather boa, a pair of clip-on earrings. Anything more and guests spend the night sorting through a bin instead of getting photographed.
Print before anyone leaves A pocket printer and a roll of tape turn the hallway into the record of the evening. Each guest pulls their own strip off the wall on the way out.

Start from this one

The artwork
Keep this one, or describe your own party and get artwork drawn for it.
The wording
Every line on this card is an example, the painted title included. Change all of it; the design holds.
Sending
By text, from your own number. Guests open a link. Nothing to download.
The price
One credit for the invitation. Six guests or sixty, the number does not move.