Telling the Family & DIY Announcement Cards

Who wants to hear about how we announced to our family?! Well here's the story. I was searching Pinterest (where else?) for anything that I could use for an announcement. I found this really great idea for a surprise birthday party and thought that I could convert it into a pregnancy announcement for our family. It involved putting all the privy info onto a balloon that would have to be blown up to read. After researching how much custom balloons cost, I nixed that idea and morphed it into my own. I found a couple of other ideas for the actual card and went to town in Photoshop and scrapbook paper to create the look.

Now we were going to mail these to immediate family, because who doesn't love getting fun mail. However, things changed and we didn't end up sending them out. We made phone calls to our immediate family. First I called my mom, who was playing nursemaid to my grandma who had rotator-cuff surgery. I asked if she was alone and she said yes so I then Facetimed her. We chatted a bit and then I turned the camera to the front to show her our three positive pregnancy tests. She started bawling and asked if she could tell my grandmother. We tortured our families and told them they had to keep it secret. We talked a while and she cried, cried, cried, and we cried, cried, cried. After that we called my dad, and asked him if he was ready to be a papa. He was floored and so happy that he kept saying "I'm going to be the best grandfather!" Well duh. The hubs called his mom and said to her "I have some bad news for you, your going to be a grandmother." She was at her cousin's home in San Jose and proceeded to spill her wine all over our cousin's homework and burst into tears. She made sure to tell him to keep me calm....again HA! She was told also to keep it a secret, but the cousins knew because....well she had to tell them why she was crying and spilling wine! Next was D's dad, who was also very happy. D's brother said "It's about time!" and we said "Your telling us!" and we sent the positive tests to his sister via text, since we knew she was busy studying, and we got an excited phone call. My stepmom reacted the same way and started crying. Everyone was so happy.

Now your probably wondering why we still made the cards since we announced via the telephone. Well I thought it would be a cute way announce the news on Thanksgiving to our families. Have the great grandparents open them and then pass them around. Well, as you know we had a scare the day before so we decided that we weren't going to tell the whole family on Thanksgiving but let the GG's know the night before. I called my mom and had her put me on speakerphone to tell my papa. He was in the hospital having a heart procedure so I thought the news would cheer him up. Next up, once my mom got back to her house, was my grandmother. We facetimed again and my mom had her open the announcement card. One look at the balloon and she was jumping up and down and crying. She also said "I have to call my sisters!" Off camera I guess my mom was shaking her head and the look on my grandmothers face was heartbreaking..."No? I can't call my sisters?" I explained to her the situation and she understood and said she would keep it in until she got the ok. Lastly, we drove over to D's parents to tell his grandparents. They were in town for TG and it was perfect. We explained to his parents why we were there and then proceeded to give the announcement for opening. His grandmother cried and was just overjoyed once she read the balloon and then proceeded to pass around the card to everyone to see. All of them were such special moments and I will never forget them!

Ok so how did we make the cards? I went a bought some balloons from Party City. Then printed my premade text onto cardstock and I cut it to fit into a 4"x6" envelope. Next I took coordinating scrapbook paper and glued it to the cardstock. I poked holed large enough to put some ribbon through and tied the balloon to the front.

Next I created a pocket on the back with coordinating scrapbook paper to hold the announcement card in. You do this by scoring three sides of the paper, folding them in and gluing them to down.

Next was the announcement card. I created my text in Photoshop and then printed it on regular paper. I had to do a little trimming to create my arches. I cut a piece of cardstock to 4" x 6" and scrapbook paper to 1.5" x 6" and glued the scrapbook paper to one edge of the cardstock. Then glued my graphic onto of the top of everything. This then slid into the pocket that we made, along with the announcement photos we took and a copy of our first ultrasound.

No card would be complete without a fun envelope. I used some confetti that I had on hand and some stamps to make the envelopes special.

Always celebrate the good things!

There you have it! I know it was a little wordy but I hope I made it worth it by giving you a mini tutorial on the announcement cards. I am so happy to be able to share all of this with my readers and now the baby spam should tone down, maybe/hopefully, to weekly or twice weekly since I have caught everything up. Thanks for all the love and support that we have received over the last week. It means the world to us!