Make Your Own Birth Announcements

Celebrating the birth of a child with a birth announcement is one of the most exciting things that you are able to do when you add a new member to the family. There are many places online to purchase birth announcements, but at Learn Crafts Online we want to show you how easy it is to make your own birth announcements. Here's an article we found about how to make your own birth announcements using vellum. Enjoy:

Making your own birth announcements can be very easy and rewarding. By using vellum, you can announce the birth of your baby while also personalizing the announcements with a picture of your new bundle of joy. Here's what you need to make your own vellum birth announcement:

Purchase vellum paper and scrapbooking paper at your local craft store, if you don't already have some on hand. Vellum is a translucent paper that allows you to see what is underneath it. We will use this paper to print the actual announcement on. You can also purchase the envelopes at a craft store.

Cut a piece of scrapbook paper of your choice to the size of an envelope. Use this as a template for the vellum and your other announcements.

Print your announcement from your computer directly on to the vellum paper. In your printer settings on the computer, select "transparency" as the paper type. This is the closest paper type to the vellum paper and won't put as much ink on the page. I printed my announcements in Microsoft Word, fitting four announcements on one page. Suggested wording:

We are happy to announce

Zachary David Paxton
February 27, 2005
7:40 a.m.
6 pounds, 14 ounces
20 inches long


The proud parents,
David and Rachel

In our case we were announcing twins! Just use a smaller font to fit both birth annoucements on one page. I also printed their photos in Microsoft Word so that I could "paste" them together and print them side-by-side.

Experiment with fonts until you find the font you like. To download free fonts, simply search Google for "free fonts"

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Using the paper cutter, cut the vellum paper with the announcements printed on it to the size of the scrapbook paper.

Trim your photos to be smaller than the scrapbook paper. The paper should look like a mat behind the picture.

Using the double-sided tape, tape the photo to the scrapbook paper.

You will tape the piece of vellum paper on top of the scrapbook paper with the photo on it. Use two very small pieces of tape along the top edge of the scrapbook paper to tape them together. You don't want the vellum totally taped down because you want to be able to lift the bottom edge of it to see the photo.

That's it! Your family and friends will love your personalized birth announcements.

Rachel Paxton is a freelance writer and mom of four. For scrapbooking, card making, gift-giving ideas, and more family memory-making activities, visit http://www.crafty-moms.com.

Doesn't it sound pretty easy to make your own birth announcement? And I can guarantee it would save you some money as well! This technique could be used for other card ideas as well. Adapt it to your own uses.

Here are a few more recommended birth announcement resources for you: