How to Make Homemade Photo Birth Announcements With Puffy Paint

Making your own birth announcements is cost-effective and creative.

It is a common tradition to send out birth announcements to family and friends shortly after the birth of a new baby. Birth announcements often contain a picture of the child along with the baby's name, weight, length, and date and time of birth. Professional birth announcements can be pricey and may take a week or two to produce. Creating your own birth announcements will allow you to save money, get them sent out sooner and provide your own personal touch.

Things You'll Need

• Digital camera
• USB cable
• Computer
• Color inkjet or laser printer
• Card stock or glossy photo paper
• Scissors
• Puffy paint

Instructions

1. Take a photo of your newborn with a digital camera. Upload your digital photo to your computer by connecting your camera to the computer with a USB cable and following the prompts for uploading. Save your photo to your desktop or picture folder by clicking the "Save" option on your task bar and assigning a name to the picture file.

2. Open a new Microsoft Word document. You may use another application such as Publisher 2000 or Adobe Photoshop if you currently have one of these applications and are familiar with their operation. Insert your child's photo into the document by clicking "Insert" on your task bar. Select "Picture" and "From File" from the drop-down menu. A new window will open. Select the image file that you saved in Step 1. Once the picture opens within your document, you may move it to any space that you see fit by placing your navigation arrow over the picture and holding down the left button on your mouse and dragging the image.

3. Place your child's name in the space above your picture. You may choose to leave this space blank and write it in puffy paint after printing. You also may trace over typed text with puffy paint. Type relevant information such as the child's date and time of birth, weight, length and parent's names in the space under or to the side of the picture. You can create more than one announcement on each page by highlighting your completed announcement text and image, clicking "Edit" and "Copy" from the task bar, and pasting it next to or underneath the original announcement by selecting "Paste."

4. Print your announcements. Insert your card stock or photo paper in the paper tray in your printer. Select "File" and "Print" from your task bar. Select the number of copies that you would like to print and click the "Print" option once again. If you chose to print more than one announcement on each sheet of paper, separate them using a pair of scissors.

5. Use your puffy paint to highlight your child's name, draw a decorative frame around your child's picture or draw designs on your announcements. Popular birth announcement designs include baby bottles, teddy bears, rubber ducks, babies and flowers. Sketch your designs on your announcement with a pencil before applying puffy paint to avoid mistakes.

References

• Tiny Prints: Baby Birth Announcements Etiquette
• Just Mommies: Homemade Birth Announcements