We love love love watching our Designer Rolodex friends celebrate milestones, like adding to their families! And today is truly a special day, because we get to share the baby announcements that Jackie of Sincerely, Jackie designed for her little guy Richie’s welcome into the world! Jackie is known for her elegant invitation design, so it’s no surprise that she created these stunning and refined powder blue and vellum baby announcements for her own sweet boy. Congrats to the happy, and adorable, family!
From Jackie: We wanted these announcements to be a simple declaration of both Richie’s birth and his coming home, over three months later. When I was first hospitalized with HELLP Syndrome, my husband and I made the decision to be public with our journey. Many, many people kept us in their thoughts and prayers after our son was born 14 weeks early. We ended up mailing several hundred birth announcements, and I never shared the sentimental story behind them.
They may be overly simple, but they’re more meaningful than they appear. I purposefully kept the typography clean, and the colors subtle because I did not want to detract from the three most important things: Richie’s announcement, our two favorite photos, and the song that planted itself in my heart.
The announcements were digitally printed in a soft blue-grey on cotton paper, and contained two cards, each with a photo on one side, and typography on the other. The first, smaller card was our actual announcement containing both the date Richie was born (May 26, 2016, weighing 2lbs 2oz, and only 13.75″ long), and the day he came home from the NICU, 99 days later (September 1, 2016, weighting 7bs 6oz, and 20.25″ long) . The second card contained the lyrics from “Amazing Grace.”
When you go through something as life-changing as what my little family endured, you find peace anywhere it is offered. For me, I found that peace driving to the NICU one morning when “Amazing Grace” was playing on the radio. I hadn’t really cried before that. Not like, cried cried, if you know what I mean. But in the car that day, I had to pull over to the side of the highway to catch my breath. I felt an overwhelming sense that we’d be alright. Nearly every day after that, I would listen to any version of “Amazing Grace” that I could find on YouTube. About halfway through our NICU stay, little Richie was transferred from an isolette (incubator) to an open crib. A nurse, Patti, found a mobile in a storage room and felt compelled to get it to start working again. She stayed late that day to fiddle with the mobile, and proudly announced the next day that she had gotten it to work. The first song it played was “Amazing Grace.” I remember just standing there, in awe, as my little miracle baby slept peacefully under the mobile in his crib.
After Richie came home, I sang “Amazing Grace” every single night while I rocked him to sleep. It’s become the melody of our journey, and I felt it was important to include that in Richie’s birth announcement, although not many people knew the story behind it.
In addition to the two birth announcement cards, we added the invitation to our son’s baptism, which was sent to a select few family members. The baptism invitation featured a verse on one side, and the baptism details on the other, neatly slipped into a vellum envelope.
Thanks Jackie!
Design: Sincerely, Jackie
Styling: Kristen Poissant
Sincerely, Jackie is a member of the Designer Rolodex – you can see more of their beautiful work right here or visit the real inviÂtaÂtions gallery for more wedding invitation ideas!
Photo Credits: Charlie Juliet Photography