Free Custom Birth Announcements Template

I designed this personalized birth announcement for a good friend of mine who was expecting her second child before Christmas. She did not know if she was having a boy or a girl, so I created one design for a girl and another for a boy.  That way, when the baby was born I was quickly able to update my template and have a beautiful and personalized gift for her while she was still in the hospital.

I personally favor the little girl birth announcement with the beautiful flower but what parent of a little boy wouldn't love the trains too.

Each image has been designed as an 8x10 in Microsoft Publisher. I was going to share with you step by step how these were created, but it is really easier for all of us if I just provide you with a free template to start your own with.

As always, I ask that you use this only for personal use. Please do not sell these.

Here is what you need to do to create your own personalized baby birth announcement:

• Download the girl's birth announcement template here and 
• Download the boy's birth announcement template here.
• Note when you click on the link, Google documents will give you a note saying "Sorry, we are unable to generate a view of the document at this time. Please try again later." That is ok. Simple click on the arrow down button (next to the print symbol) to download the file. You will have no problem opening it in Publisher after you download it. Or it will say "click here to download original file" you can save it by clicking on the link. Be sure to download and not open with Word.
• Open the file in Microsoft Publisher. No, I do not know how to convert these to a Mac compatible program...sorry.
• Download the fonts (fonts can be found on free font websites or you can use your own favorites). Here are the free fonts I used:

Name, date, time - Poor Richard
Weight and inches -  Fang Song
Flower - Kalocsai Flowers

Name, date, time - Poor Richard
Weight and inches -  Fang Song
Train -  Miltrain

• Personalize the numbers, text, colors, and anything else you want to.  
• Here is a link to a post that will help you with stretching text so that it fits nicely in the space provided. 
• Each row is in a separate box, so you can manipulate each row independently. Remember you can always Undo, so don't be afraid to change it around.
• Sounds like lots of work, but the template will help and it really isn't hard to use.
• Once you are happy with the design, save the image as a high resolution JPEG (to do this in Publisher follow theses steps: 'Save As', 'Save as type', 'JPEG', 'Change...' (Resolution), 'High quality printing or commercial printing (300dpi)') .  
• Upload the image to your favorite photo developer and you have a beautiful but very cheap reasonable baby gift!

Please leave me a comment to let me know whether or not you have been able to download the file and if you create your own.  I would love to hear which file you like the best and I would love to see your finished products. Send them to me at fullofgreatideas(at)gmail(dot)com and I can share them with others on this post so we can all benefit from each others creativity.

I was able to give my girlfriend a beautiful baby gift for under $10. I could have done it for even less if I reused a frame I had laying around the house or something I found at a thrift store.

Do you know anyone who you could make one of these for? What do you think?

Have a great day,
Stephanie