Custom Baby Announcements: "Our Family Has Grown by Two Feet"

I love to do baby announcements but don't get the chance to do them very much. I was recently contacted by someone, who had stumbled across my blog and liked my work, and was asked if I would be interested in making some handmade custom baby announcements for her new arrival. "Yes!" I was so excited to have this opportunity. She emailed me sample colors and and I was off to the scrapbook store for paper. I found this adorable paper by KI Memories and just loved it! I love that it looks masculine with out being just "blue". I also only use Bazzill card stock, as many of you know, and I wanted some texture for these and so I found brown, green and blue and made sure they were all different textures to add a little something extra to the design.

Once I emailed samples and got the ok on the paper, I got started. I knew that I wanted the checks and stripes on the front of the card but I also wanted something that was different and would focus the attention of his little feet. I somehow wanted the title to enclose the photo she would place on the front and came up with the circle and the title wrapping around that circle. I will admit, I panicked when I realized that I was going to take the digital image and make it real on paper! But, where there is a will, there is a way, right? Thanks to my Cricut and some crafty calculating, I got it to work perfectly! I really loved how it came together; the circle, the title, the entire cover.

I inked all of the edges with Colorbok Fluid Chalk Ink. Inking always adds the dimension I am looking for. The inking was more subtle that I would normally do but I didn't want it to over power the paper. Something she specifically requested was that there being some sewing on the cards. Just the little bit of Zig Zag stitch on the front was the perfect touch. 3 small brads added the perfect accent without taking the focus from the photo.

Here is what it looks like with a photo of the baby feet, not his baby feet, but some baby's feet!

Now the inside. She requested a photo mat so that she could also include photos of his face. ( I mean as cute as his little feet are, family and friends are going to want to see his cute little face, too! °Ü°) I put that photo mat on the top of the card, double matted it and zig-zag stitched the frame. Four small, brown brads helped to accent that.

For his information, I wanted his first and middle name to stand out, after all family and friends already know his last name, so I put the last name in a cursive font and grey ink so that his first and middle names would stand out. (Names on the examples have been changed from the real ones) Now that I had that done, I needed something to balance the page out and since I wasn't able to buy much of the circular paper I decided to run a row of it along the bottom. I felt that the mat and this runner framed in his birth information nicely.

(The example below is the digital design but matches the paper pieced design with the exception that the zig zag stitch is brown on the cards and not white as shown)

Thank you, Christy, again for allowing the chance to create these for you! I had a lot of fun with them learned some new techniques with my Cricut and grew a bit design wise. I can't wait for my next chance for more announcements.

Designed and Created by CJL

ALL IMAGES COPYRIGHTED 2008 The Avid Scrapper

Feel free to be inspired by my work but do not copy it. THANK YOU! °Ü°