Parenting & New Baby Advice Blog

Archive for the ‘Birth Announcements’ Category

Own a computer and digital camera?  If so, you can make your own baby birth announcements that are beautiful, affordable and professional looking.  First, we recommend that you visit some of the websites on the internet that offer personalized, custom-imprinted birth announcements to get ideas of what styles you like, wording, and just to get ideas in general.  Second, determine how many friends and family will receive the announcements.  This will help you figure out what type of announcement might work for you. The more complicated the design, the longer it will take to create.  Therefore, if you have a large list of birth announcement recipients, you may want to choose one of the easier designs.  Finally, you’ll need to decide what information you’d like to include on your announcements.  Some people like to include every last detail about the baby including the name, birth date, length, weight, exact birth time, sibling names, parent names and even names of their family pets.  Others simply include the baby’s name and photo.  

If you plan to make your own announcements, we do recommend that you gather the supplies, address and finish as many of the announcements as possible before the baby’s due date.  After baby arrives, you likely won’t have as much time to spend on the announcements so if time is at a premium, you could try to do just 5 or 10 announcements a day until all of them are sent to your list.  Several ideas to consider are outlined below.  Making the announcements can be very fun and a great way to let your creativity shine!  

1)     Create a postcard birth announcement with your baby’s footprint.  You can buy plain white postcards and either a pink for a girl or light blue stamp pad for a girl at just about any office supply store (if you don’t know the sex of the baby, either buy one of each or buy the stamp pad after the baby is born).  You can pre-address and stamp all the postcards prior to the due date.  After the baby is born, use his/her foot on the stamp pad and then stamp the front of each postcard.  Your friends and family will all be thrilled to have their very own copy of the baby’s foot.  We recommend doing this one day when the baby is taking a nap.  Then just write the baby’s name and any statistics you want to include on the back of the postcard.  Or add one of these clever sayings: ‘Ten Little Toes, Each One As Precious As The Other’, ‘We’ve Increased The Size Of Our Home By Two Feet’ (you should use both of your baby’s feet on the card),  or ‘We Have Ten New Toes To Tickle’.

2)     Create a photo baby announcement.  After the baby is born, buy a baby t-shirt with his/her birth information and then take photo of them in the t-shirt.  If the baby has older siblings, you could include them by purchasing “I’m The Big Brother/Sister” t-shirts as well and then take the photo of all the children.  These shirts can be purchased at many online at stores including Baby Gifts & Gift Baskets. Buy postcard paper – three hole punch the photo and then tie together with ribbon.

3)     Using greeting card software, type the baby’s name and birth statistics right onto a picture post card featuring your new baby. Print addresses on the reverse, stamp and mail for a no-hassle, no envelope birth announcement.

Instead of sending out the same old card-style birth announcement like all of your other friends and family members who have had babies, spread word of the new arrival with one of these unique birth announcement ideas. These announcements will have them oohing and aahing over your ingenuity. Of course, if you want to stick with the ever popular card-style birth announcements that feature the baby’s name, birth date and weight along with a photo, just do a quick search on the web to find one of the many internet stores that sell this type of announcement. However if you are up for something fun and different, here you go:

1) Cookie Birth Announcements from CookieGiftBaskets.com. It’s like getting two gifts and one – a unique outline of all the baby details along with an edible photo cookie that the recipient can savor. We can’t think of a sweeter way to announce the new little baby boy or girl. You just send in a digital image of baby and they’ll print it on edible paper that is adhered to an extra large fresh-baked cookie. You can choose frosting colors and ribbon colors to match the photo or gender of the baby.

2) Candy Wrapper Announcements from Welcome Baby or another candy wrapper vendor. These candy wrappers are available in numerous colors and themes ranging from Noah’s Ark to Yellow Duckies. You can even get a photo of your little one added to some of these customized wrappers that also include the baby’s information like name, weight and birthdate. What a sweet way to announce the arrival of your little sweetie pie! Usually the vendor prints the labels on glossy paper which is then wrapped around the chocolate bar of your choice – milk, dark, Ghirardelli mint, milk chocolate and almond, etc. Mailers are often available so that you can either drop these birth announcements in the mail or hand them out to friends and family.

3) Coffee & Tea Birth Announcements from Baby Gifts & Gift Baskets. Whether you’ve had a sweet little baby girl, bouncing baby boy or set of twins, this company has a coffee or tea packet that is appropriately themed. Pink stripes, blue stripes, baby carriages and teddy bears are just a few of the motifs available to let your friends and family know the big news. Each coffee or tea packet includes the baby’s name and birthdate. They even have an adorable ‘New Additions To Our Line’ theme that is perfect for multiples. Again, these fun and unique announcements can either be dropped in the mail or given out by hand.

4) Baby Announcement Photo Magnets from The Magnet Queen. These unique birth announcements will be displayed on the refrigerators of friends and family for years. They won’t soon forget your child’s birthday! Each magnet is customized with the child’s photo along with their birth information and name (that you supply). Magnets are available in numerous sizes and come with matching envelopes making it easy to send them via the US Postal Service.

5) Personalized Honey Jars from Baby Gifts & Gift Baskets. These little jars are literally the sweetest birth announcement available! Small glass jars are filled with pure clover honey and then a custom label featuring the baby’s name and birthdate is applied to make these announcements extra special. Numerous colors and themes are available including a clever ‘Bee Loved’ jar with a bee carrying a bundle of joy on the label.

Add your favorite Birth Announcement Idea or join the discussion on our DIY Baby Announcements message board.