Tutorial: Baby Boy Birth Announcements

Hand-making cards is something I would love, love, LOVE to be able to do. I've tried, tons of times, but can never get them the way I want them- they always end up looking a little too scrapbook-y, not to mention I'm rubbish at cutting straight lines. When I first saw the cards Meghan, whom I know through a friend, had made, I was in awe- they were Christening invitations, and were gorgeous. I've since seen Christmas cards and birth announcements she's done, and they're unlike anything you could ever find in a card shop. Her style is minimal, classy and beautiful.

I had already asked Meghan if she would do a guest blog post for me for Celebrate the Boy month when I saw her display at the Get Baked! art exhibit a couple of weeks ago. This lady did a series of 99 beautiful cards, all with a cupcake theme: some were sparkly, some had googly eyes, and some were even SCENTED like vanilla cupcakes! Needless to say, they went over a treat (get it? Gah, sorry :P), and during the slower times of the show, the other artists persuaded Meghan to give us a mini card-making class.

For this tutorial, she's chosen to show us how to make a baby boy's birth announcement - no straight cutting required! - and says the same technique could also be used to make birthday party invitations. I've already got her booked to make Baby M.'s birthday party invitations... six months from now.

Meghan has her own blog, http://www.driventoink.com/, and her fantastic hobby is also her day job, since she's store manager of The Paperie, here in St. John's. Without further ado, here's Meghan...(click on each of her photos to see the larger version)

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Hi everyone, I’m super excited to be a guest blogger this week on Mushy Peas! I guess you might like to know a little bit about me… my name is Meghan and I’m addicted to stamps. Luckily I am able to feed this addiction by working at The Paperie, our very own locally owned and operated scrapbooking and rubber stamping store right here in St. John’s! I have been making handmade greeting cards for the last seven years and three years ago I made my first attempt at baby announcements for my friend Ally.

At Ally’s first baby shower I gave her a little IOU for birth announcements but last year I got a bit more creative for her second daughter and created two portfolios with 12 blank announcements in each one. Here’s a masculine version of Ally’s baby announcements that I created especially to “Celebrate the Boy” this month!

This first picture shows the finished set. To create the portfolio to house all the announcements I used the handy-dandy AccuCut die-cutting machine at The Paperie – see the step-by-step picture tutorial on my blog. I decorated the cover of the portfolio using a few layers of cardstock and rubber stamps. The little ark image was a rubber wood-mounted stamp by A Muse Artstamps which I stamped on a scrap of white paper and then punched out using an Oval paper punch. I coloured in the image with Copic markers and adhered to the front of my portfolio with 3-D foam tape.

The phrase “Boy oh boy” was an acrylic stamp which came in an A Muse stamp set with a bunch of coordinating stamps, as seen in the picture above. Unlike rubber wood-mounted stamps, acrylic stamps are mounted on a clear acrylic block so that you can see exactly where you’re stamping – this is handy when you’re trying to get exact placement. All colouring and stamping should be done prior to assembly with double-sided tape.

Here’s what the inside of the portfolio looks like…

I printed the wording on all of the cards before folding them and adding the image to make things go a little quicker…

Here’s what the finished announcements look like, inside and out….

These announcements are so great to have on hand for a friend's shower. They can be decorated in any colour and if the sex of the baby is unknown you could always go with a yellow or green colour scheme and just say “We’re proud to announce the arrival of our new baby!” Search the Internet for inspiration when trying to come up with the wording – the possibilities are endless. And if you’re not feeling particularly crafty, you can always give me a call!