I’ve been holding off on writing about the invitations to my twins’ B’nai Mitzvah until they went out. But now that it’s done: Ta da!

These totally original, customized viewmasters were made by Image 3D. I can’t even take credit for the idea, Amy from Chandelier Events told me about it. It’s pretty simple, really: you go online, upload some photos, drag and drop them into place, add some text, and Presto Chango: less than two weeks later you get 100 boxes filled with 100 viewmasters for you to send to your family and friends.

I had a little text placement help from a designer friend at Big Sea Design.com, (plus she designed the center label) but it really is DIY — if you’re not, like me, fontically challenged. (what?  it’s a word!)

And while it’s hard to really tell what they look like from this image, imagine this:  the disks come packaged in a viewmaster, so your guests click through the images, with the text “floating” on top of them, while looking through the viewfinder.

Before choosing these, I went through much agonizing.  Since our party is being held at The American Museum of the Moving Image, the viewmaster theme seemed particularly apropos.  What they didn’t seemm, was low-key.  Quite the opposite.  For advice, I went to – where else – Facebook –  and after weighing the advice and comments from about 30 something friends…. I decided to go for it.

The fact is, these super-cool, clever, and original (if I do say so myself) invitations ended up costing about half of what the paper invitations I had priced cost. Even so, the appearance of over-the-topness bothered me.

Still, in the end, I couldn’t resist.  So these were the winners.  And the response has been pretty phenomenal: from “best invitations evah!”  to “These are the best invitations anyone in my family has ever gottten.  Ever.”  to the simple “This invitation just made my day,” the praise was pretty much universal. (of course, people who hate it and think it’s over the top don’t send you emails to tell you that.  But I’ll go on believing nobody felt that way.  I will.)

I’m starting to think that personalized Bar and Bat Mitzvah gifts are the way to go, too. PersonalCreations.com personalizes everything from a baseball bat to a pen and pencil set, to a silver money clip to help keep all those $36 gifts organized.  The only reason they didn’t make it onto my list of Best Bar/Bat Mitzvah gifts is because I didn’t know about them.  You can even use this coupon code to save on purchases, if you decide to take my advice and shop there.

But for now – I’m not worrying about anything.  Not gifts,  not the menu, not the fact that I still haven’t hired a florist, less than two months out. (Oy!)

The invites are out.  Let the chasing of RSVPs begin!

Disclosure:  I was compensated for my mention of Personal Creations.com.  As usual, I was given no editorial direction whatsoever, and all opinions are my own.