Birth Announcements

For my son, Cooper, I designed hand-made announcements before he was born 2 1/2 years ago and cut and prepared all the pieces before he was born so they’d be easy to assemble as soon as we had the adorable pictures to finalize them. My husband chided me saying, “You’ll never do this with baby #2!” I’m happy to have proven him wrong! Here was my son’s announcement, pardon the crooked factor, I scanned it in that way. To create it, I printed out the announcement part on orange-ish bazzill construction paper. I designed the size and layout in Publisher, but you could also do this in Word. I printed it out and THEN cut them. (Your printer will jam less if you do it this way) Then, I cut out brown bazzill paper for the background for the pictures. I found the ribbon at Michaels, and printed out the monogram on white bazzill paper. I printed out the pictures at Costco, 2 strips per 4x6 I had printed. I actually applied the Sepia tone in Publisher. If you’d like to know how, here it is:

C=0, M=60, Y=81, K=63

1. Right click on your picture, choose Format Picture
2. Go to Picture Tab
3. Click on Recolor
4. Choose Color > More Colors
5. Go to the Custom Tab
6. Change the Color Model to CMYK
7. Enter the above CMYK figures for Sepia
8. Click > OK > OK > OK

With everything pre-cut and ready to go, they were pretty easy to assemble. I had some friends over and we chatted while assembling. It was quite easy (well, I speak for myself, not my friends I suppose).

For Allison’s announcements, I wasn’t quite on top of things, but still managed to get them out within a month of her being born. I had sort of looked at ideas and knew I wanted the colors of her nursery. Again, I used green bazzill paper as the base of the announcement and printed them before I cut them.

This time, I printed the pictures at home, just due to time. I had the “Sweet Song Bird” stamp I’d found at Michael’s. I stamped them onto pink bazzill paper. The little white strip with her birth “stats” is just printed on cardstock and cut to fit. Lastly I used a “Pioneer” Embellishment Glue Stick I found at Michael’s for $1.99 to apply the ribbon.  I only had to use one glue stick for all 50 announcements, plus 30 thank you notes. Here’s what the back looked like: The “a little birdie told me” was also a stamp I’d found at Michael’s and the little felt bird was in the dollar bin at Michael’s, a whole box of them! Awesome! I also used the glue stick to apply the felt birds. For the pictures and everything else, I used the Tombow Mono Adhesive Dispenser (they went by much quicker than the glue stick).

If you take the time to plan it out, it’s very doable. My husband took some to work and they LOVED them! It’s fun to see people’s reactions. Have fun scrapping and/or crafting!

Oh yes, and here are the thank you notes!