Baby announcements, cards, etc- anyone make their own?

[Kelly's Girl]

I am having a baby around the holidays this year and was thinking of making my own birth announcement/Christmas card. Does anyone have any experience in this? I am new to the digital camera age, so it would have to be pretty easy for me to do it.
TIA!

[Mrs. M.]

We did our own baby announcements with Adobe Illustrator, but I don't have them online. This was our holiday card from last year:

http://members.chello.at/birgit.main/xmas.jpg

Made with Adobe Photoshop: We shot some photos on our couch, pasted them together, added borders and the writing, saved as a .jpg and had them printed from one of those places that print digital photos. Then we glued them onto blank cards, added our message and sent them off :)

[Lindsan]

I did these invites for my goddaughter's christening. The hand was from a photo that her mother took on the day she was born. I cut it out in Photoshop and gently coloured it pink. The had is printed on vellum, while the name is printed on the backing white paper so that it shows through softly. The text is printed on the third pink paper (not shown).
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v454/Lindsan/P7080568.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v454/Lindsan/P7080564.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v454/Lindsan/P7080566.jpg

If you don't want to do any cutting and editing with a photo editing software, it would be equally nice to have a card, bookfolded, with desired text on the front and a normal photo on the inside. You can easily set a nice layout up in Microsoft Publisher or Word and print it at home if you like.

[Mrs. M.]

Linda, that is beautiful!

Did you print yourself or have it printed somewhere?

[Lindsan]

Thank you! Yes, it was printed on my HP deskjet at home. It came out looking beautiful and crisp.

[Kelly's Girl]

WOW! :eek: You guys are super talented! I am amazed! Thank you for the helpful hints- I am a total computer moron, so I really appreciate it~

[jenji]

question for those who made their own with a computer:
When you use a font other than one that is standard on your computer, how do you
1) get it (do you download it? buy it as part of a software package)
2) use it (if you download it, how do you "install" it?)

sorry, I'm very new to this

[vjel]

jenji, I usually download fonts and save them to a folder somewhere (or you can just download to your desktop). Most of the fonts I've had to unzip. After that I copy the font from the folder then go to "setting" then "control panel" and then "fonts" folder. I paste it in the font folder and can start using from there. If you are already in Word (or whatever program you're using) you may need to exit out of it and restart for the new font to appear.

some font sights that I go to are
Dafont.com (http://www.dafont.com)
Font Freak (http://www.fontfreak.com)

HTH!

ETA: these font sights are free.

[emschwar]

I made our birth announcements, and I've made some birthday invitations for friends. I'll post later - no time now :)

[karilynne_97]

Bumping up this thread....

Question: where do you get the backgrounds for the cards? Digital scrapbooking or do you make you're own. I'd rather make my own, but I'm new to Photoshop (just purchased Photoshop Elements 4.0 over the weekend) so I don't really know where to start.

Thanks!!:D

[SunnyAB]

Hopefully you are still checking this thread Lindsan - :) would you mind sharing how you tied the ribbon? It sort of looks like you might have threaded the ribbon through two 'ribbon punches' (a thin rectangular punchout) and then tied it like a man's tie?? (How close am I?) :D

[Lindsan]

SunnyAB, pretty close. :) But I didn't use a punch. Instead I just cut two slits with an exacto knife next to eachother (at the same place on each of the papers). Put the ribbon through both slits from the back and then tied it by holding both ends, creating a loop, and pulling the ends through the loop. I hope I'm explaining that well enough? It's really easy. I hope that helps you.

[MeTheGirlie]

Lindsan - I have a question for you, what type of vellum did you use that didn't smudge after you printed it? I tried to print on vellum for my wedding invites many moons ago, but every vellum I tried smudged!

Beautiful work btw!

[Lindsan]

Methegirlie, it's just regular old vellum from a hobby shop where I live. It's the cheapest kind actually. I actually have never had any problems with smudging after printing on my printer. But I always let everything I print dry for a while before I touch it.

I have heard that some printers have settings where you can choose how much ink you want to use. Perhaps that would help you.

I wish I had a simple answer for you, I guess I'm just lucky. :)

And thank you!

[L'il Bit]

I just finished my son's birth announcement:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v506/rhinoshirt/IM000471.jpg
I stamped "baby BOY" as well as the background for his picture. I used my printer to get his name on vellum, and on the back of the green piece are all his stats as well as a magnet so recipients can stick it on their fridge if they like!

[LRL]

I am working on an announcement for my DS. I am all finished with the layout of the card. It was created on photoshop (which I haven't used in many moons, but figured out). I am now trying to print them, and the font comes out REALLY pixel-y (as well as some smaller photos I was using). I *think* it has something to do with aliased/anti-aliased text, but either way still gives me pixel-y text.

Can someone with photoshop expertise help me please? Is it that the font I am using needs to be re-downloaded? IOW- Did I get an incomplete download of the text? I am so lost!!!

TIA! :)

[CityGirl]

LRL- Its hard to say what the problem is for sure, but my guess would be that you are working on a file with low resolution since you say that some of the photos are fuzzy too. If you go up to the menu and select "Image Size" the Resolution needs to be at 300 pixels/inch to get good crisp prints. If your document is anything lower than that, you can't just set it to 300. You need to start with images that are shot at a high resolution so you can size them down (never size up). Usually for print, graphic designers don't lay out text in Photoshop because it can't ever give you really crisp text, but using your text in a higher resolution document should work good enough for announcement purposes.

Another issue is that you could be using a PostScript font. Though in my experience (on a Mac) the printer will just substitute a different fort entirely. Do you get any error messeges when you try to print? If so there may be a couple of work arounds. If you give some more info I may be able to help.

[Little Angel '77]

LRL, if you want to send it to me, I can try to fix it. Its most likely the font you choose and the printer you're using.

I would suggest picking a different font. Don't forget to use layers. Make sure to save a copy as a PSD, so you can go back and change things.

You can email me (email in Bio).

[tunibell]

I recently made a birth announcement for my daughter using Illustrator and Photoshop. I was wondering if anyone could recommend a good online printer?

[Little Angel '77]

mpix.com

[LRL]

citygirl and lil angel77- Sorry for the late reply!

Thanks for the advice. I ended up changing the pixels per square inch and that worked out just fine. Thanks also for the offers of help!

tunibell- It took me forever to finish my DS's annoucements, so I ended ordering them through Longs to save time. I think they ended up being 17 cents, and only took one hour to get printed. I uploaded the jpg to their site on-line and then picked them up at my local store.

[Camdynlyn]

Can someone give me some suggestions on the envelopes you used when you DIY announcements? I want to go ahead and start addressing them!

[mrstim]

I'm assuming you want something online, Summer, but I just went to a local paper store and bought envelopes. They're a white linen weave nice envelope. I think they were like $3.25 for 25. Do you have somewhere like that? (I went to a place called If It's Paper, but I think they're just local.)

HTH!

[{b}]

Learn from my STD wedding experience: Get your envelopes BEFORE designing anything. 'Nuff said.

I've used www.envelopemall.com in the past - nice quality, tons of color and size choices, relatively cheap and fast.

[emschwar]

I've used www.actionenvelope.com before. They have every envelope imaginable!

mrstim - I love If It's Paper! We always did our back to school shopping there when we were kids :)

[tgal]

A little more expensive than regular envelopes, but I used and enclosure.

www.envelopements.com

Their website lists vendor locations and online retailers.

[JenK]

I did a search, but couldn't find the info I was looking for. I am wanting to make some announcements for my baby due in March. I'm trying to plan ahead, but I need inspiration. Does anyone have any good websites to suggest where I can find different ideas for this? I don't want them to be cutesy, with characters or typical 'baby' stuff, but I want them to be appropriate for a baby announcement. I'm leaning towards stripes, if that helps...

Any suggestions are welcome! Thanks!

Jen

[snowzilla]

There is a "make your own" baby announcement thread here:

http://www.constantchatter.com/forum/showthread.php?t=4772&highlight=announcements

Hope that helps!

[taraw]

The announcements I made for my son had stripes, here's a pic.
http://i96.photobucket.com/albums/l189/tarawads/LeeAnnounceWoutLast.jpg?t=1166630171

[JenK]

snowzilla - thanks for the link to that thread. I couldn't find that when I did a search, but I'll go check it out.

taraw - your announcements turned out very nicely! That is similar to what I'm thinking of, so I'll definitely keep that in mind. Thanks!

Are there any other websites out there I can look at? I don't know if I'm not searching for the correct term, (baby announcements), but I'm just not finding a lot of variety. If anyone has a different suggestion, I'd welcome it!

[justHB]

Are there any other websites out there I can look at? I don't know if I'm not searching for the correct term, (baby announcements), but I'm just not finding a lot of variety. If anyone has a different suggestion, I'd welcome it!Make sure that you're not copying anyone's copyrighted or trademarked designs. Most of the people that design baby announcements who have websites will be graphic designers who have worked long and hard to build their business and create a brand/style for themselves. By copying their work, you are actually doing something illegal.

[JenK]

JustHB - I kind of have some ideas in my head of what I want to do, but I'm not good with embellishments. So I really just want to get a feel for what you CAN do, and then maybe combine a few of those elements into my own design. But I understand what you're saying. There are a LOT of fantastic designs out there, that would be so nice to call my own!

[kate's mom]

bumping this up...
I have photoshop elements and I like to layer photos of my girls together with a background. I can only figure out how to do color photos.
How do I get the cute striped, polka dot, etc backgrounds.
Is there somewhere to download them from, or a program that you can buy?

Thanks!

[jeninef]

The digital scrapbook sites have some freebies out there. I like Shabbyprincess.com. You can download her whole kits or just the papers (backgrounds). Check out the digital scrapbook thread for more ideas.