My Lovelies,
I mentioned a while back that I finally got around to designing Benjamin’s birth announcements. It took a while.
They are pretty simple: two photos, one on each side, with his name and birth details, surrounded by a black border. Here’s the front:
Very simple.
The front photo is probably my most favorite one that I've taken so far.
The front photo is probably my most favorite one that I've taken so far.
They arrived last week and I spent a few days assembling, printing addresses, and sending ‘em out. Actually, I almost sent 20 of them off without stamps. That would have been a big oops.
The hardest part, surprisingly, was choosing envelopes. Who knew there were so many dang colors of envelopes out there?! Eventually, I picked out white (classic), pool blue (the expected color for a boy birth announcement) and then a rather exotic metallic green (wacky and unexpected, maybe?).
And then I randomly pasted on address labels to each stack of envelopes. And thus the bulk of the work was done. Add a stamp and send that sucker out the door. Whew!
For a few folks (mostly immediate family members) and for Benjamin’s official birth book copy, I experimented a bit with envelope liners. Are you familiar with these?
You can buy them at stores like Paper Source but with a bit of elbow grease they are surprisingly easy (but time consuming) to make.
Here is how to make them:
Materials:
Envelope
Fancy paper (for the liners)
Straight edge/ruler
Thin cardboard (for the envelope liner template)
Xacto knife or scissors
Glue stick
Pen/pencil
Optional:
cutting mat
Step 1: Place your envelope on the cardboard and draw around the edges:
Step 2: Cut out cardboard template:
Step 3: Using a straightedge, measure 3/4” from the bottom of the template and 1/8" from each template side (see pen lines, below). Cut those edges off using your scissors or knife.
This allows for your template to slide down into the envelope and not mess with the top glue edge:
I also slightly modified the edge on the square envelope so that the template edges were more in line with the angle of the flap:
Better:
Here are the templates fitted into the envelopes:
Step 4: Using the knife, set the template onto your fancy liner paper and trace around the exterior edges.
Step 5: Make sure that the liner fits into the envelope.
Step 6: Fold both the top flap of the envelope and the liner closed, creasing the liner.
Step 7: Glue the top of the liner into place. It’s not necessary to glue the bottom half of the liner, only the part that is in contact with the envelope flap.
And that’s it. You’re done! It was fun to try a few different papers.
This is an old calendar.
One note: with liners you want to discourage folks from using a letter opener; Paper Source recommends that instead of sealing the envelope with the envelope’s glue strip, you use a sticker of some sort to hold it closed.
I couldn’t find any stickers that I liked so I cut out circles in coordinating paper and glued them onto the outside, holding the flap closed. I didn’t do a test mailer so I’m just going to hope that it worked. :)
The kid ‘helped’.
After all that work making the template and creating a few examples, I eventually decided not to do liners for all the cards. Too much work for this sleep-deprived Mama.
These went out to the grandparents and I saved one for Benjamin’s Baby Book.
But we’ll definitely do them again. Maybe for a birthday invitation? Anything with a smaller guest list...
