Vellum Birth Announcement
by Rachel Paxton

Making your own birth announcements can be very easy and
rewarding. By using vellum, you can announce the birth of your
baby while also personalizing the announcements with a picture of
your new bundle of joy. Here's what you need to make your own
vellum birth announcement:

* Vellum paper
* Scrapbook paper
* Double-sided tape
* Paper cutter
* Baby photo
* Computer/Printer
* Envelopes

Purchase vellum paper and scrapbooking paper at your local craft
store, if you don't already have some on hand. Vellum is a
translucent paper that allows you to see what is underneath it.
We will use this paper to print the actual announcement on. You
can also purchase the envelopes at a craft store.

Cut a piece of scrapbook paper of your choice to the size of an
envelope. Use this as a template for the vellum and your other
announcements.

Print your announcement from your computer directly on to the
vellum paper. In your printer settings on the computer, select
"transparency" as the paper type. This is the closest paper type
to the vellum paper and won't put as much ink on the page. I
printed my announcements in Microsoft Word, fitting four
announcements on one page. Suggested wording:

We are happy to announce

Zachary David Paxton
February 27, 2005
7:40 a.m.
6 pounds, 14 ounces
20 inches long

The proud parents,
David and Rachel

In our case we were announcing twins! Just use a smaller font to
fit both birth annoucements on one page. I also printed their
photos in Microsoft Word so that I could "paste" them together
and print them side-by-side.

Experiment with fonts until you find the font you like. To
download free fonts, go to http://www.Google.com and type in
"free fonts" and you will find many free fonts to download.

Using the paper cutter, cut the vellum paper with the
announcements printed on it to the size of the scrapbook paper.

Trim your photos to be smaller than the scrapbook paper. The
paper should look like a mat behind the picture.

Using the double-sided tape, tape the photo to the scrapbook
paper.

You will tape the piece of vellum paper on top of the scrapbook
paper with the photo on it. Use two very small pieces of tape
along the top edge of the scrapbook paper to tape them together.
You don't want the vellum totally taped down because you want to
be able to lift the bottom edge of it to see the photo.

That's it! Your family and friends will love your personalized
birth announcements.

Photo of finished birth announcement:
http://www.crafty-moms.com/articles/051205c.shtml

Rachel Paxton is a freelance writer and mom of four. For
scrapbooking, card making, gift-giving ideas, and more family
memory-making activities, visit http://www.crafty-moms.com.