Making your own birth announcements can be very easy and rewarding. By using vellum, you can announce the birth of your baby while also personalizing the announcements with a picture of your new bundle of joy. Here's what you need to make your own vellum birth announcement:

* Vellum paper
* Scrapbook paper
* Double-sided tape
* Paper cutter
* Baby photo
* Computer/Printer
* Envelopes

Purchase vellum paper and scrapbooking paper at your local craft store, if you don't already have some on hand. Vellum is a translucent paper that allows you to see what is underneath it. We will use this paper to print the actual announcement on. You can also purchase the envelopes at a craft store.

Cut a piece of scrapbook paper of your choice to the size of an envelope. Use this as a template for the vellum and your other announcements.

Print your announcement from your computer directly on to the vellum paper. In your printer settings on the computer, select "transparency" as the paper type. This is the closest paper type to the vellum paper and won't put as much ink on the page. I printed my announcements in Microsoft Word, fitting four announcements on one page. Suggested wording:

We are happy to announce

Zachary David Paxton
February 27, 2005
7:40 a.m.
6 pounds, 14 ounces
20 inches long

The proud parents,
David and Rachel

In our case we were announcing twins! Just use a smaller font to fit both birth annoucements on one page. I also printed their photos in Microsoft Word so that I could "paste" them together and print them side-by-side.

Experiment with fonts until you find the font you like. To download free fonts, go to http://www.google.com and type in "free fonts" and you will find many free fonts to download.

Using the paper cutter, cut the vellum paper with the announcements printed on it to the size of the scrapbook paper.

Trim your photos to be smaller than the scrapbook paper. The paper should look like a mat behind the picture.

Using the double-sided tape, tape the photo to the scrapbook paper.

You will tape the piece of vellum paper on top of the scrapbook paper with the photo on it. Use two very small pieces of tape along the top edge of the scrapbook paper to tape them together. You don't want the vellum totally taped down because you want to be able to lift the bottom edge of it to see the photo.

That's it! Your family and friends will love your personalized birth announcements.

Photo of finished project: http://www.crafty-moms.com/articles/051205c.shtml

Rachel Paxton is a freelance writer and mom of four. For scrapbooking, card making, gift-giving ideas, and more family memory-making activities, visit http://www.crafty-moms.com