Make Your Own Birth Announcementswith Ribbon and Paper Punch Decorations
The main difficulties in making these yourself is getting the text printed onto paper, as well as how you intend to add the pictures to the announcements. As far as getting the text onto paper goes, if you are not very computer and design savvy but you really want to make your own birth announcements, just visit my Custom Invites and Text page and put in an order for a printable custom text file. I will be glad to create the text for you. Getting photos onto your announcements does not need to be all that difficult. It doesn't need to break the bank either. You have a couple options. If you got your infant's pictures taken at the hospital, hopefully they sold you the picture on CD. If not you can always have them color copied. Color copy machines do have an option to duplicate the same image many times to one page. Then when you make your own birth announcements all you have to do is cut the pictures out and attach them to the announcement cards. If money is no object you can simply order enough wallet prints to place one on each and every announcement. A good tip is to attach them with photo corners so the recipients can choose to remove the photo to carry in their wallet. I recommend taking a picture yourself with your digital camera to make your own birth announcements. The photo will have a little more personality. Plus, you can dress your little bundle up and pose them to get the perfect picture. You can either resize and print the pictures out yourself, or use Snapfish.com by HP to print wallet sized prints for cheap. I use snapfish all the time and it's great. Just upload your photos and then have them sent to a local developer like Walgreens. You usually can pick them up within a couple of hours. They will send them to your house too but it usually takes a couple days and you have to pay for shipping. Tools and Materials needed to make your own birth announcements: 1. Start by setting up the text to print onto your birth announcements. Use desktop publishing software to set up the text so that it wraps correctly around the baby's photo. All you have to do is set the page set-up to the same size dimensions as your paper. If you are going to use 12" by 12" card stock to make your birth announcements, then your page size will be 6" by 6" (after you cut the paper into quarters of course). If this is something that goes over your head, or you just plain would rather pay to have someone else do it, I can do it for $10.00. Just fill in the order form on the custom printable invitations text page. Just make sure and specify the size of your announcements. For $20.00 I will even design it with your baby's photo already placed on the page. Just contact me and let me know that you want to purchase a printable photo birth announcement template. 2. Cut the 12" by 12" card stock into quarters. You can buy this paper at any arts and crafts stores. You can even get it at department stores like Target in their scrapbooking aisle. If you cannot find 12" by 12" paper you can still make your own birth announcements. Just make them with 8 1/2" by 11" card stock instead. They will just come out smaller. No biggie. 3. Print the text onto the card stock pieces. When you select the command to print a new window will pop up. Make sure you change your printer options to match the paper you are printing on. Most printers revert back to the default page size of 8 1/2" by 11". If you do not change it to 6" by 6", it will print completely off kilter. A waste of paper... This goes the same for anyone printing one of my custom printable templates. 4. Cut the ribbon to fit on your birth announcements. If you are going to make your own birth announcements at 6" by 6" then you should cut your ribbon into 5" lengths. You will place the ribbon at a 1/2" in from the edge all the way around the card. So if your announcements are going to be a different size then the 6" by 6" just make the ribbon about an inch shorter than the dimensions of your cards.
5. Draw guidelines on your birth announcement cards. This is how you ensure that the ribbon is placed evenly and straight all the way around the card. Use a pencil with an eraser to make these guidelines. Measure 1/2" in from the edge of the card and make a small mark with your pencil. Do this at all corners of the card. Then use your ruler to draw a faint line starting from 1/2" in from the edge and ending 1/2" in from the opposite edge. See the picture to the right for an example.6. Attach ribbon to the birth announcements. Use a permanent glue runner to apply adhesive to the back of the ribbon. Using a glue runner works the best when you make your own birth announcements because it attaches the ribbon firmly without puckering the card stock. Besides it's fast, easy, and there is no mess. Just make sure and put paper down when you are using the glue runner, and do not place the ribbon down in the same spot twice. 7. Add ribbon to your baby photo. Measure the width of the baby photo. Cut a length of ribbon at the exact size of the photo. Apply adhesive to the back of the ribbon using your glue runner. Now attach the ribbon across the bottom of the baby photo. 8. Add paper punch decorations. Use a decorative paper punch in the shape of your choice (I used a frog shape) to punch out shapes out of colored paper. Punch out a good little pile of paper shapes to work with. Use some craft glue or glue stick (or even your glue runner) to attach the paper shapes at intervals around the ribbon on the birth announcements. If you are using craft glue or glue stick, all you have to do now is wait for everything to dry and the birth announcements are done. More tips and ideas to make your own birth announcements... * Experiment with different paper punch shapes and color combinations. For example, for a girl's baby announcements you could do pink ribbon with green frogs. * If you do not have a paper punch or cannot find one in a shape you want to use, you can also make your own birth announcements using small stickers instead of paper punch shapes. * Does gluing all that ribbon seem a bit much for you? You could also simply draw the border on. Use some pretty glitter, or metallic gel pens and draw the border on using a ruler.
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These baby announcements are fairly quick and easy to make. Every amount of effort you put in to make them is well worth it for the beautiful announcements you will be left with in the end.