You don't have to spend a fortune to get really cool Christmas or New Years Eve party invitations -- not when you can get them free! There are five free holiday party invitations on this page that can actually be used for Christmas, New Years or even just a holiday-themed cocktail party. The designs range from playful to elegant, so you can probably find something to fit your taste.

The more whimsical designs include a smiling gingerbread man, complete with a green bow tie, and a Christmas tree covered in red ornaments. The more elegant versions feature two shiny Christmas ornaments, holly and mistletoe, and holly and a few pine cones. The art for each was designed in a square shape and can be used at a variety of sizes. See below for links to various envelopes that would work and full instructions for printing and cutting the invitations.

These Christmas party invitations match these free Christmas clip art images and free Christmas scrapbook paper. This page also has a few more printable invitations suitable for holiday use.

Please vote in the holiday invitation poll at the bottom of the page!

1. Downloading the invitations

When you choose a thumbnail and click on it, the image will appear larger. Once you see it larger, double-click. That will make the optimal-sized version appear. If you use a PC, right-click your mouse and save the final version of the invitation artwork to your hard drive. If you're a Mac user, control-click the image until you get a pop-up menu that gives you the option to save it.

2. Pasting the invitation image into a word processing document

These printable birthday invitations are square and can be sized to fit 5" x 5", 6" x 6", 6 1/2" x 6 1/2", 7" x 7" envelopes or any variation thereof. It all depends on which envelope you want to use. Naturally, if you'll be giving the invitations by hand, you can make them whatever size you want. I've provided links to buy various sizes of square envelopes in the right column.

You can insert the art into a document in one of several ways. If you're going to use just one or two invitations per page because you want to print them large, you can paste the art into the document or insert it as clip art. You can also create a table with the number of invitations you want on the page. Just insert the artwork into it, size it and then copy it into the remaining table cells. You can also paste one image into a text box, size it and copy it into the document multiple times. This will give you the flexibility to move the invitations around on the page. To make it easy on yourself, place the images so they butt up against one another on one of the sides, or the top or bottom, so you can't see any white in between the two images. This will allow you to make one cut for two invitations, which will save you time.

If you plan to use more than one invitation per document page, be sure to make the first one the exact size you want it to be before copying it and putting more of them on the page. You don't want to have to re-size multiple images and get them all the same size. A simple way to ensure you get the right size before you paste all the pieces in place is to put one into the document and then print it. That will tell you if you need to do any resizing.

3. Printing the invitations

I advise using the heaviest weight card stock your printer will allow. If you don't know what that weight should be, check your printer manual or the manufacturer's web site. Bear in mind that too-heavy card stock will jam the printer or won't print at all. On the other hand, if it's too light, the final product will be too flimsy.

4. Cutting the invitations

Using a paper cutter is the best way to cut the invitations if you want to do them yourself. You can also take them to a copy center, instant print shop or office supply store to have them cut professionally. You can also use a craft knife and a ruler. As a fall-back, you can use scissors, although the edges probably won't be straight. If you have no choice but to use scissors, try decorator-edge scissors that create a pattern, such as zig-zags, that would hide at least some of any uneven cuts.

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Terms of Use

You are free to use these free Christmas party invitations all you want for your personal use. But you may not sell these images, give them away as a collection or incorporate them into products without permission. I'm open, though, so if you have a special request, please don't hesitate to ask. Please contact Carla at info [@] vintageholidaycrafts [.com] if you have any questions or special requests.

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If you use these free images, I would appreciate a link back to this hub using the following code or text:

<a href="http://hubpages.com/_invitations/hub/christmas-party-invitations-art">free Christmas party invitations</a>

If you don't know how to use the HTML code above, please use this link:

http://hubpages.com/_invitations/hub/christmas-party-invitations-art

... and link it from one of the phrases below:

free Christmas party invitations

Christmas party invitations

These images were designed at Picnik.com, the free online graphics program anyone can use. To learn how to create your own images with Picnik, check out this tutorial that will teach you how to make your own clip art.