Friday, August 14, 2009

Birth Announcements

My friend at work Evan and his wife Cindy are expecting their first baby next month. I offered to make some handmade birth announcements as my gift. This is a first for me. These are the samples that I gave them, but they haven't chosen one yet. I am very happy with the way they turned out. I would love to have your comments on them too. By the way - I have no idea who the baby in the photo is. It's just a picture I found on a stock photo site. She is pretty cute though. I printed all the text on these on my computer.

This A2 size announcements has two side, and this is the front. I made the flower from white cardstock and vellum punched with my daisy punches. I put the white pieces through the Big Kick with my Swiss Dots folder, then I inked the edges with Pastel Pink Chalk Ink and put a pearl in the center. The squares are cut with my Nesties and the edges of the top part are border punched. I cut two slots with my ribbon slot punch and tied the ribbon through them before I attached the top piece to the card. I did this to make the ribbon more secure than just sticking in on with a glue dot. The quote says "A new baby is like the beginning of all things - wonder, hope a dream of possibilities." One note, the center scallop border piece is actually dark brown. It looks black in the photo.

This is the back of the announcement. I didn't plan my printing very well, so the text ended up a little closer to the photo than I wanted. I'll correct that if they choose this design. I used a corner slot punch to insert the photo into the mat and put it on a scalloped rectangle cut with my nesties.
The announcement above is 5x7 and only one-sided. I printed the text on pink paper, then stamped on the side with swirl stamps. I punched more daisies from cardstock and vellum and placed them randomly on the swirls. I used tiny pink rhinestones for the centers. I made another bigger daisy for the corner of the photo. The quote on this one says "It is not a slight thing when those who are so fresh from God love us." That's by Charles Dickens and is one of my favorite quotes of all time. I'm a quote freak by the way. :)

The last sample is a long 8 1/2 x 4 option. I realized after I had it printed and almost put together than I should have moved the photo and info up or down and added another quote or sentiment to this one as well. If they choose this option, I would do that on the finished cards. I decorated this one simply with some DP and a scalloped edge. I stamped the little footprints (are those cute or what?) and cut them out with my nesties along with the scalloped circle mat and added a ribbon.

2 comments:

Juls said...

wow all of these are gorgeous! I am sure the new parents will be dlighted no matter which one they choose!

GiftsByHeidi said...

Wow Judy, I'm anxious to see which one they pick. They are all fantastic, I can't pick one as my fav so I don't know how they'll be able to. So gorgeous, how nice of you to make the cards for them.