Oh So Beautiful Paper

As a new mom, I was in tears when Jackie from Believe Notes shared the story of new mom Karen and her twin girls – Emma Claire and Gabriella Hope – born 16 weeks premature last summer. Gabriella sadly passed away a couple hours after birth, but her sister Emma fought and grew stronger each day. Emma finally came home after six months in the NICU and her parents decided to send announcements to friends and family. I’m honored to share Karen’s story and Emma’s announcements today.

From Emma’s mom, Karen: Emma Claire and her identical twin sister, Gabriella Hope, were born 16 weeks premature at 24 weeks gestation on Friday, July 13th, 2012. Gabriella’s lungs were too immature to survive and she passed away 2 hours after she was born in our arms. We were told it was not likely that Emma would make it, but she continued to defy all odds with each day she spent in the NICU. After 6 months in the NICU, Emma came home on January 11th, 2013. Since we were so consumed with having her in the hospital when she was first born, we didn’t get a chance to send out birth announcements. When she started getting close to coming home, we decided we would send out a coming home announcement.

It was important to us that the announcement illustrated how far she had come in her first 6 months so we knew we wanted to include her birth stats as well as her coming home stats. Jackie took our ideas and created the perfect announcement to celebrate our brave little girl!

Thanks so much Karen and Jackie, and big hugs to sweet Emma Claire!

Photo Credits: Believe Notes

I couldn’t resist rounding out the week with one more baby announcement! I have all of our hospital bracelets saved in Sophie’s baby book at home, so these hospital bracelet baby announcements from Sarah Jane Winter seem like such a great idea! The bracelet opens to reveal a photo of baby William and his loving parents. So sweet.

From Sarah Jane: William’s father is a pediatrician that specializes in Neonatology (newborns) so I played with the idea of the new baby coming home from the hospital. A baby hospital bracelet was mimicked with the ‘vitals’ including name, date of birth, length, and weight. This was wrapped around the card and fastened with a button brad. A blue vellum sleeve wrapped the card.

The card was printed front and back with the photos I took of the family and a simple greeting.

Thanks Sarah Jane!

Photo Credits: Sarah Jane Winter

It’s been quite a baby-filled week so far, and I’m loving all of this beautiful baby-related stationery! Next up, these fun and modern baby boy birth announcements from Stephanie of Pink Orchid Press. Stephanie worked with Ari’s mama to come up with a lion theme to help give the new baby some additional strength to keep up with his older brother, pairing the lion motif with a modern sans serif font and pops of yellow.

From Stephanie: This announcement was designed for a sweet family just before their second son was born. They decided to wait until his birth to find out the gender, so we actually worked long and hard to create two very different – but equally beautiful – announcement designs. Mom Amanda knew that if her little one were to be a boy, he would need to be “strong and bold” to keep up with big brother Eli, and chose a simple lion motif.

The colors chosen were equally strong and bold: curry yellow for a pop of color and chocolate brown for a solid, masculine feel. A simple sans serif font perfectly compliments the minimalist design, and both are reflected on an equally-adorable stationery set. Add a chocolate envelope liner and a perfect print of the sleepy little one (with his fists up and ready, no less) and this has become on of our favorite birth announcement projects yet.

 

Thanks Stephanie!

Photo Credits: Andrea Sumner Photography

I’m constantly in awe of the amazing talent of Liz from Linda & Harriett. Her large scale quilt calendar is a completely stunning work of art (and currently on sale right now for an absolute steal!), and her stationery designs feature vibrant color palettes along with her signature hand lettering and illustrations. Liz welcomed her second child earlier this year, a beautiful baby girl named Louise, and I’m beyond thrilled to share Louise’s baby announcements today!

The announcements were letterpress printed in turquoise ink on 200 lb 100% cotton paper. Liz hand lettered Louise’s name across the top, and a photo was cut to size and attached to each announcement. The envelope return address was also hand lettered by Liz and letterpress printed in the same turquoise ink. I love that the announcement is worded from the perspective of Louise’s big brother, Griffin – such a wonderful way to involve an older sibling!

Liz no longer offers custom social stationery, but you can find Linda & Harriett collections on Minted and Paperless Post (also available in printed versions)! Liz also tells me that she’s currently working on a baby collection for Paperless Post that will be available this summer. Thanks Liz!

Photo Credits: Liz Libré | Linda & Harriett

I’m absolutely thrilled to share these adorable baby announcements today, in part because I actually had the pleasure of meeting this darling baby at NYIGF back in January! Shelley from Albertine Press welcomed her second daughter, Emily, in early October. I absolutely love the fold-out design that she came up with for Emily’s announcements, and how sweet is the photo of Emily with her big sister??

From Shelley: I was hugely inspired by a lot of the wedding invitation work I’ve been doing lately in designing her card, both the typography as well as the accordion tri-fold, which allowed me to create a splash quote on the face, include a photo in a printed frame, and finally the welcome message. I love the idea of unfolding a piece to keep discovering more.

The announcement design has a lot of personal significance to our whole family; besides being about love, the Einstein quote on the face has always been one of my favorites, and is especially perfect since my husband is also a physicist.

On the face is an E which is actually an ampersand. Though no “and” appears in the quote, it fit to include it as both a reference to her name (Emily), Einstein, and the fact that we’d added her to the family. We letterpress printed the suite in dusty magenta (a nod to big sister Sadie’s absolute favorite color pink) and charcoal gray ink. The announcements were completed with slate gray envelopes which I addressed in white ink. The hardest part was picking out which picture to use.

We don’t do many birth announcements in the studio, but I couldn’t have been more thrilled with how these came out. I owe a huge thanks to my super-fabulous production team at Albertine Press, who not only created this amazing piece (and all of the rest of the work we do!) but also welcome Emily into the studio every day.

Thanks Shelley – and welcome baby Emily!

Albertine Press is a member of the Designer Rolodex – you can see more of their fabulous work right here!

Photo Credits: Albertine Press

*Albertine Press is a sponsor of Oh So Beautiful Paper