birth announcements-what are you doing? « Back to Group Discussions

[Thursday Girl]

So I haven't seen my grandpa in 2 years because it's just too much for my grandparents to handle with us visiting and they have been taking turns being really sick so haven't come out to us Gramps had 2 heart attacks on christmas. Well my sister flew in from denver to go see them and she said that he spent 2 hours talking about how much he misses me and how he regrets not seeing me for 2 years, etc. (which totally made me cry because my feelings have been hurt that all my other siblings and my cousins have gone to see them but they didn't want me to come with my kids). My sister says he has saved all my birth announcements and birthday invitations and wants to come see me as soon as he can.

so I really want to make a birth announcement so I can send it out. I generally make them leaving a space to put in a picture of the new baby and then modify the weight, date, time etc. I make them in excel and print them myself. I just have NO IDEAS what I want this time.

1. my first didn't have an announcement
2. my second it was a belly shot up close of the bump with my hands, my husbands, and one of my daughters reachign up and touching the belly. The card opened from the middle with a flap going up and a flap going down with the photo of the baby in the same spot the belly just was.
3. my third was a background of a flower close up, then a picture of my older girls and they were announcing the birth of their sister, and a newborn photo of her.

so, what do you have?

[csekywithlove]

I haven't even thought of it, honestly. Most of our family live close enough to stop by or see the baby later. For those that live far away, we use facebook. I'm getting that you are missing your grandparents quite a bit and while a birth announcement is nice, perhaps a more permanent way to communicate. My aunt bought my grandmother some sort of printer that she can keep in her house and all the grandchildren can send pictures to her via email and they automatically print out. I will ask my aunt what kind of printer it was. Also, maybe the next time someone is at their house with either a computer/web cam or an iPhone with video talk you could actually have some "face" time with your grandparents. 

I know that wasn't really the answer you were looking for but it's an idea nonetheless, right? 

[prettyisa]

Ooo...I think the printer idea is great--or what about a cheap digital photo frame? I've seen them on sale for $20-30. You could load it up with pics of all of the kids and the new baby and he'd be able to 'see' you all the time!

I found some announcements on vistaprint that I like, as well as an invitation in a really similar theme, since we're planning to send out invites to the baby blessing in the same envelope to save on the (now-more-expensive) postage. Not sure what picture we'll put of the kid, but I love those little coccoon things. Or if we do a belly cast, one of the baby nestled into it...

[MamaChick]

We have a lot of out of town & state family so I do them too.

Last time (for my 1st) I used tinyprints.com and spent way too much! They were really precious though! This time I'm going to use Shutterfly. I have a $20 off coupon so I should be able to get them pretty cheap.

[miss_honeyb]

http://petitepurls.com/blog/?p=323

I got this book for Christmas, and I want to make the patchwork quilt announcements for this baby, using scraps from the full-size quilt I'm making him/her. I just wish I could make part of them beforehand, so it's not 9 months later before they're sent out...

[Thursday Girl]

thanks for the ideas, I am checking out shutterfly.

[piratemere]

Here's the birth announcement from my first.  We took all the pictures ourselves, made it in Microsoft Word, and printed it off on our own printers.  Not bad, considering. 

For DS2 I scrapbooked it, scanned it, and printed it off at Costco. I couldn't find the file, so I just took a picture of it.  It looked much better the first time.