Ideas?

[zona.livejournal.com]

I have been recruited to help a friend make invitiations for her company's Christmas Party. She wants handmade-unique-professional-festive-gorgious-fun invites. I am positive that we can pull this off without a hitch but am looking for all the ideas i can wrap my little mind around.
I don't really want to do the traditional "velum over decorative paper, attached witha ribbon" thing if we can stay away from it. It always looks very nice but has come to be very common. We want these invites to stand out and be remembered as something special....... so she looks good to her her boss ;)
We have a "spend it and be reimbursed for it" budget and only need to produce about 20 invitations.
Any ideas would be appreciated and i will let you know how they turn out by posting a picture, of course!