Child's birthday invitation template

Question

I am trying to do a birthday invitation for my daughter for her 4th birthday. Are there ready-made Latex templates available? So far I was just downloading some bitmap templates and using GIMP to fill it in, but the printed results are mediocre.

Answer 1

Well, if you want an invitation card, what about gcard? You can combine this with Andrew Stacey's fantastic birthday cake code in How can I draw a cake using TikZ? (Here, I removed two candles to suit your case). And you get

\documentclass[10pt]{article}
\usepackage{tikz}
\usepackage{gcard}
\begin{document}
\begin{frontcover}
\begin{center}
\begin{tikzpicture}
\fill[white!80!black] (3,-.2) circle[x radius=5.05,y radius=1.66666];
\fill[white!80!black] (3,0) circle[x radius=5,y radius=1.66666];
\draw[white!75!black] (3,0) circle[x radius=5,y radius=1.66666];
\fill[white!75!black] (3,0) circle[x radius=4,y radius=1.33333];
\begin{scope}
\clip (0,0) arc[x radius=3,y radius=1,start angle=180,delta angle=180] -- ++(0,2)  arc[x radius=3,y radius=1,start angle=0,delta angle=-180] -- ++(0,-2);
\foreach \k in {0,...,60} {
  \pgfmathparse{Mod(\k,2) ? "pink" : "purple!50"}
  \let\linecol=\pgfmathresult
  \draw[line width=1mm,\linecol] (\k mm,2) -- ++(0,-3);
}
\end{scope}
\fill[opacity=.3] (0,2) arc[x radius=3,y radius=1,start angle=180,delta angle=180] -- ++(0,-.5)  arc[x radius=3,y radius=1.25,start angle=0,delta angle=-180] -- ++(0,.5);
\fill[pink] (-.25,2) .. controls +(0,-.5) and +(-2,0) .. ++(3.25,-1.25) .. controls +(2,0) and +(0,-.5) .. ++(3.25,1.25) -- ++(0,1) .. controls +(0,.5) and +(2,0) .. ++(-3.25,1.25) .. controls +(-2,0) and +(0,.5) .. ++(-3.25,-1.25);
\draw[pink!80!black] (-.25,3) .. controls +(0,-.5) and +(-2,0) .. ++(3.25,-1.25) .. controls +(2,0) and +(0,-.5) .. ++(3.25,1.25)  .. controls +(0,.5) and +(2,0) .. ++(-3.25,1.25) .. controls +(-2,0) and +(0,.5) .. ++(-3.25,-1.25);
\fill[pink!80!black] (.75,3) .. controls +(0,-.25) and +(-2,0) .. ++(2.25,-.75) .. controls +(2,0) and +(0,-.25) .. ++(2.25,.75)  .. controls +(0,.25) and +(2,0) .. ++(-2.25,.75) .. controls +(-2,0) and +(0,.25) .. ++(-2.25,-.75);
% Show four candles instead of six
\foreach \i in {1,...,4} {
\pgfmathsetmacro{\yshift}{-\i * (5 - \i) * .07cm}
\begin{scope}[xshift=\i * .5cm,yshift = \yshift]
\fill[purple!70] (1.5,3) arc[x radius=5pt, y radius=2.5pt, start angle=-180, end angle=0] -- ++(0,2) arc[x radius=5pt, y radius=2.5pt, start angle=0, end angle=-180] -- cycle;
\fill[pink] (1.5,5) arc[x radius=5pt, y radius=2.5pt, start angle=-180, end angle=180];
\fill[yellow] (1.5,7.5) ++(5pt,0) .. controls +(0,-1) and +(.5,0) .. ++(0,-2.5) .. controls +(-.5,0) and +(0,-1) .. ++(0,2.5);
\end{scope}
}
\end{tikzpicture}

\vspace{1cm}

Happy Birthday!
\end{center}
\end{frontcover}

\begin{insideright}
\begin{center}
More happy birthday greetings!
\end{center}
\end{insideright}

\end{document}

You can also use Alain Matthes' pgfornament package for some fancy Vectorian borders. And, oh, Daniel is right, we should not forget Paulo Cereda's duck. (There are a lot of versions here. Just take your pick.)