How to Make Digital Photo Birth Announcements

When your baby is born, the last thing you are going to want to do is to figure out how to, in the midst of middle-of-the-night feedings and the general exhaustion of giving birth and having a newborn, send out photo birth announcements. Luckily, there is a lot that you can do before the birth to get parts of your baby’s birth announcement ready to send out, leaving very little for you to do after the fact.

Why send birth announcements?

The answer to this one is that they let your friends and family know that you gave birth to a child, and more importantly, they begin the relationship of your baby with these people by providing key information such as name, gender, and a photograph! People will often, after getting a birth announcement, send a card (maybe even with a present), but will at least be thinking of you and won’t be shocked when, two years later, they receive a Christmas card with a family photo containing a two-year-old.

Now, if you are making digital photo birth announcements, this process is very easy, and can be done just as quickly as going to the drugstore or photo center and printing out some digital photos. The key is to, before your baby is born, prepare the framework for the birth announcement so that all you have to do is to insert a digital photo, the baby’s measurements, and the date and time of birth.

Before your baby is born:

The first step is to determine what your budget is and how many of these birth announcements you will want to be mailing out. Make a list of all your friends and relatives who would enjoy getting a digital photo birth announcement, and factor in the costs: about 10 cents apiece for envelopes, 42 cents apiece for stamps, and either 25 or 75 cents apiece for the announcements, depending on whether you print in the 4×6 or 5×7 size. This process will often help you determine what size to print in, because the larger require an extra 50 cents apiece, which can add up quickly. Once you have made this decision, you should purchase envelopes that will be slightly larger than your photo birth announcements, and get busy addressing and stamping them.

The digital photo birth announcement needs to then be designed, either by yourself (if you have enough expertise), or by a variety of companies that will do it for you (just do a search on google for digital photo cards). If designing yourself, use a visual design program to lay out a template either in 4×6 or 5×7 ratio and make a background color or pattern. Then create two boxes: one for the baby’s photo, and one for the baby’s information. You can pick a font and sizes for the information, such as name of baby, date and time of birth, weight and size, and parents (and siblings) names. Do enough work on this so that all you need to do after the baby is born is to add the digital photo and type in the information.

After your baby is born:

Take a digital photo that shows your baby in as flattering of a view as possible, perhaps even with mommy and daddy, and place it into the framework you designed for your digital photo birth announcement. Edit the text to include all the relevant personal information, save it as a jpg file, and take it to your local photo center. Print it out just as you do with regular digital photos, and you will have your photo birth announcements to stuff in envelopes, seal, and mail!