Anyone choose birth announcements yet?

[SabDoulaMommy]

I just "made" mine tonight. 'Course I have to get all the correct info on them, when we know what it is, but. . . it's so much fun! I wish I could show off what I just made, but I don't know how to convert it into a .jpg. (I made them in PrintMaster Platinum.)

So anyone else out there made the decisions, addressing envelopes? Having them printed, making your own, doing online announcements, shutterfly-ing? What? I'd love to know! :bouncy

[MAMom]

YES! One thing that I actually got done on time from my "to-do" list :lol

We're ordering them from a local stationary shop that I love -- the owner is super friendly & very accomodating. We got DS's from her too, and except for the initial visit & pick-up, she did everything else with me over the phone.

DH and I designed them, since I didn't like any exactly the way they were from the choices in the books (ok, I mostly designed them, but he liked them too). I have the wording all set in a Word doc on my computer & will just e-mail her the details when baby is born.

For DS we took pictures within the first few days & had them printed on Shutterfly (the 2"x3" size) & included them in all the announcements -- hoping to do the same this time. Both black & white - one close-up photo of the baby alone & one of us as a family (using the tripod).

And I have the addresses in an Excel doc -- will print them out on sticky labels (clear) and will have return address printed on the envelopes from the stationary place.

[orangecanoe]

I'm planning on doing a photo collage in Photoshop and printing at Winkflash.com --I bought the plain 5x7 envelopes a while back. I really should get the list of addresses together and start writing those out now--not sure why I didn't think of that sooner! I'd delegate to DH, but his handwriting is horrid and I prefer not to use labels.

[~lioneyes~]

Mine will be similar to those seen on purplestork.com. My sister is a graphic designer in Seattle, and she is working on some designs for them right now. She did my wedding invites, and is really great at what she does, plus it is more special to have her do them. I am glad someone mentioned envelopes, because that is something I could be doing now!

[SabDoulaMommy]

I am also glad someone mentioned envelopes. :) I have my oldest DD here w/ me tomorrow, maybe w/ her help I can get some envelopes. Wouldn't dare try to do something requiring that much concentration w/ the twins by myself. :)

[guitarmama]

Oh good, I'm not the only one on the ball. I was begining to feel weird about having all my envelopes labled before even knowing the sex of the baby. :lol I just did mine in Word--turned the text sideways and fit 2 announcements on 1 page. Simple and all but finished but inserting the photo...I'm something of a minimalist.

[EllasMama]

I think I'm going to order mine from bellybeandesigns.com - they have a lot of really nice photo card choices and are less expensive than some of the other sites with similar products. If we can't get a good digital photo I have a friend who's a great amateur photographer and will ask her to take some for us.

If I don't have this baby soon and get my other projects done, I guess I'll buy some envelopes and start addressing....

Carol

[*violet*]

Oh my goodness Carol, I am looking at their website and these are the cutest announcements I have ever seen! Wow - I think you may have gotten them another customer here. These are wonderful!

[MAMom]

If we can't get a good digital photo I have a friend who's a great amateur photographer and will ask her to take some for us.

I have to recommend this book...it changed the way I take pictures and has helped me get some really amazing shots of my DS over the past almost 3 years. I picked it up at a consignment shop when DS was first born, and it worked wonders!

How to Photograph Your Baby (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1556708955/sr=1-1/qid=1138407958/ref=pd_bbs_1/002-5285015-9535239?%5Fencoding=UTF8) by Nick Kelsh

[EllasMama]

Glad you like them NikiJeanne. FYI, I ordered a couple of free samples and they looked good in person, too.

MAMom, that book sounds great! Thanks for telling us about it. My pics of DD were always pretty awful; it'd be so nice to do better ones this time!

Carol

[ShellyK]

I'm planning to order ours from shutterfly after the baby is born. With our first, I handmade announcements with scrapbooking-type stuff, and although I had all the envelopes addressed before she was born, assembly took some time and my in-laws ended up helping not so much because I asked but because they happened to be here when I was doing them. They thought I was NUTS.

This time around, with two kids to worry about I decided to go the pre-made no-assembly route. Since I won't have the envelopes till after I place the shutterfly order, I bought sticky labels - the slightly larger shipping labels - and hand wrote all the addresses out on the labels. I have a hangup about hand writing addresses on stuff like holiday cards, invitations, birth announcements, etc. Even though it's all in my computer and I could print it out in a heartbeat, I just can't bring myself to do it that way.

I also went ahead and bought stamps, and it's all sitting in a folder ready to go. USPS has really cute storybook character special edition stamps out right now - I ordered mine online. Also, if you haven't seen this, you should check it out http://www.pictureitpostage.com You can buy real postage stamps with your own photo on it - you just have to upload a digital photo. They're more expensive than regular postage (about $0.70 per $0.39 face-value stamp) but it would be really cool if you had the right photo and the extra cash.