Birth Announcements

To date, I've crafted paper birth announcements for the friends and family of three babies and two cross stitches for the babies themselves. The first announcement was made in honour of my eldest, in February 2008. I made long, horizontal postcard style announcements with her picture and basic details on the front, with more detail on the back and a magnetic strip so it could be stuck onto people's fridges:

 

  

I made the mistake of using rub on alphabet transfers for the lettering on the front of the announcements. It took forever! Mega pain in the butt! I vowed never to use them again, and five years later I can say I've kept my promise ;)

The second birth announcement I made was for Saree's second daughter, whom I had the honour of being doula for. I stuck with a similar design: long, horizontal announcement with magnetic strip on the back for easy display on the fridge. But this time I put all the details on the front, with the photo. This time I used a word processor to create the lettering myself, printed it off and cut them up into little squares which I stuck on card and then on foam squares so they popped up from the page and made her name stand out from the rest of the text:

My third set of paper birth announcements were in honour of my second daughter's birth. This time I decided to create a vertical standing card featuring a photo and her name on the front and her details and more images inside the card. I cut out two little flowers per card, stuck a tiny pearl sticker in the centre of one and stuck that flower on top of the other, then placed them in the corner of the photo, using a foam square for the pop-up. They also feature a small strip of ribbon:

 

I got a little addicted to cutting our flowers and ended up having extras, which I stuck inside cards to use up.

I will have to do this all again in the next few months, as we welcome baby 3 into our family sometime in July. I haven't even begun to think about the announcements, but as in the past: I'll get started before the baby is born so I only have to stick the details on at the last minute before posting :) My nesting manifests in birth announcement preparation. 

I have also made a cross stitch birth announcement for my second born and Saree's daughter Eloise (and will do it for my other kids too, I just haven't got around to it yet). I made the following for Eloise's 2nd birthday:

 

Unformately I don't have any pictures of it once it was framed, it looks very sweet in it's warm wooden frame. The strawberries are of special significance to our relationship, which still gives me the warm and fuzzies to think of. Here she is recieving it: 

For my second born's cross stitch announcement I only did text. I used an alphabet that remains my favourite. Part of the reason I'm finding it hard to get started on a cross stitch birth announcement for my eldest daughter is that I haven't found a unique font I love as much as the one I used below:

Photos just don't do this alphabet justice! You'll have to pop 'round some time to check it out in the aida ;)

And thus concludes my birth announcement craft.