Birth announcements made easy

Aside from announcing Cole's arrival on the Internet (Hello, world!), we didn't ever get official birth announcements printed way back when. And I just realized that! Oh, the world of the sleep deprived new parent... :-) I had wanted to design my own of course, but there really aren't enough hours in the week for my project wish-list.

But, I just found a wonderful solution that serves both my desire for mementos and my lack of time. Tiny Prints! They are actually good for all sorts of announcements, invitations and the like. And they actually have really charming templates - not an easy feat to win me over on the template concept, but they've done a good job.

Just enter your info, upload a photo and that's it. You can even have the envelopes return-addressed to save time. Nothing could be more valuable for new parents. And at $50 for 25, plain envelopes included, there quite reasonably priced. We're ordering a set just so we have a little keepsake announcement for our baby book. Here's the draft:

I chose one from the Dwell line, and elected to use a newborn photo (this is Cole enjoying his first nap at home!). I debated about using a current photo (and even staged an ill-conceived photo shoot - more on that later...), but in the end I thought the newborn photo & birth announcement made a good combination. It was amazing to look back to see how tiny he was when he came home from the hospital. Of course, someone more on top of things might send this out earlier on... :-)

On that note... I read online that it's never too late, etiquette-wise, to send birth announcements, providing you're not mailing them out with an invitation to baby's 1st birthday party included!