A couple weeks before the birth of my first baby, I started looking into where to buy baby announcements. I noticed that some places were selling announcement layouts for customers to purchase, download, and add their own photos themselves (or you could send your photos to the retailers). My first thought was, and usually is, “Shoot, I can probably do something like that myself.”
This was the outcome:
The bird is only there to cover up our last name. Anyways, I absolutely loved how the announcement came out. And the best part…it was cheap, cheap, cheap! We have a photo printer now, but at the time we only had to pay 19 cents per copy for Wal-Mart’s one hour photo. Cory (the husband) took the pictures so that part was free.
I’ve been hooked on photo cards ever since because they’re
cheap
easy
and personal.
A couple weeks ago I took the girls to the backyard for a photo shoot, hoping to get something I could make into a birthday card for Cory from them. First, I have to say my hats go off to anybody that takes pictures of little kids for a living, especially little kids together. After over 150 shots, this was pretty much the best I could do:
Coordinating these two little munckins plus the signs proved more difficult than I had anticipated. My criteria for success was basically reduced to having both kids’ faces in the picture, everybody in focus, and legible signs. Forget about smiling or holding the signs. There’s even a “Daddy” sign that didn’t make it into this shot. It was supposed to read “Happy Birthday Daddy.” But, it’s still totally cute, one of a kind, and Daddy absolutely loved it.
Most recently we had to come up with birthday invitations for Charlotte (the little one). Her birthday is in just two weeks so our deadline for getting these invites out was right on top of us. I knew I didn’t want to buy anything, and my original idea of making accordion-style pumpkin cards for everyone would have taken way too much time. So, we carved up a pumpkin and plopped our subject next to it:
Viola! Instant birthday invitation! Ok, so the outfit was totally staged for a Fall scene. Although it was around 9:30 in the morning, I’m pretty sure the temperature was already starting to hit the 80 degree mark. I promise it didn’t take long to get the shot and we took her jacket off right away.
See how easy it is? And cheap? And personal? I love it!
As an aside, we ate about half of the seeds from that there pumpkin, but I saved the rest for something a little different, so stay tuned!
P.S. If anybody knows anyone looking for a baby announcement layout and would like to pass along the one at the top, I could probably set it up for download, so just say something in the comments or shoot me an email. I also have a few layouts that I ended up not using that I would be willing to share.
EDITED: I now have the templates available for download on my new downloads page! Enjoy!
The party invite is precious!
Well, they all are, but that one is particularly good.
Aaaahh love them all - especially the baby announcement (beautiful photos Cory!)! Yeah so our babe is 10 months now and NO announcement has been sent :(…I keep saying that as long as it’s before her 1st b-day I don’t care :)…well that’s 2 months away so we need to get busy on it!!! It’s on our list but needs to get moved WAY up…but we’re definitely doing a photo postcard. Alright, tu for the motivation!!
I love this idea too! So easy and personal. I also make sure to do these to send thank you cards after my daughter’s birthday. A nice picture from that party and a thank you to go with it. For her Mickey Mouse Clubhouse party, I had her dress in her Minnie outfit and pose with all of her stuffed animals:
http://www.chicaandjo.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/03/img_3449.JPG
These are so cute. We did one for our son’s announcement too, but it would be great to have a template for this time around…especially since I’ll have to corral two wee ones when I’m designing the next one!
OH, and it works out even better when you can get free prints from an online photo printing place like shutterfly when you sign up. Makes announcements/invitations virtually free!
These are beautiful!
I love it and would love the template to do something too with our Christmas card… please send if you can my email is julie(dot)anderson(at)ccci(dot)com
Thanks!
I make my bday invites (or used to!) and Christmas cards this same way. I did pay my friend (a professional) to make our adoption announcements though.
[...] carving the pumpkin for the birthday invitations, I knew I wanted to do something with the seeds, but I wasn’t sure what. A quick consultation [...]
I love that #1 pumpkin!!! What a cute idea!
I am expecting my first child in April. Could you send me the download you used for the baby announcement. It is great.
Thanks!
That is such a cute idea. This might be a silly question, but how did you design the card and then have them printed out? Do you have a special program?
We are due for our little girl in dec and would love the template and any others you have. I love the photo cards and have ordered them in the past for christmas but never made my own. I found your site from MomAdvise. My email address is pinkorbluewilldo(at)yahoo.com Thanks so much
Potentially dumb question, but… what program did you use to design them? I have a plan for our holiday card involving some preschool art work and then our first family portrait with our babies, but I have no idea what I need to do to make it happen. Photoshop? I love your results, so I thought I’d ask.
@mandy and meagan: I designed the announcements and invite using Photoshop. For the announcements, we just uploaded the file to Walmart’s online photolab and had them printed in our local store. For a little less you can have them mailed to your house, but it obviously takes a little longer.
I now have the templates for the announcements available for download on my “Downloads” page. Enjoy!
I would love to use the announcement card. Do you mind sending me a copy? Thank you!! I love your blog.
Love it! Thanks for sharing.