The most obvious way to procure free birth announcements is to make them yourself, using materials you already own or that you purchased for the occasion from your local arts and crafts store. Other expectant parents choose to use computer software programs to print out their own free birth announcements at home, or to send elaborate emailed birth announcements. All of these endeavors are certainly low-cost, but they are definitely not low-maintenance: if you find yourself far too busy shopping for strollers and pacifiers to tackle the project with your own two hands, there are several online resources available that will happily take over the job.
Some websites are generous enough to make free birth announcements available in card form: however, these are typically offered in only one or two designs and are rarely completely free of charge. If you are also in the market for a pricey catalogue or piece of baby furniture, and aren’t too picky about the design of the announcement, then this method works fine. Otherwise, most websites giving away free birth announcements use the Internet as their card: these announcements take the form of free Internet space for expectant parents to compose their baby’s own web page. The address of the page is emailed to friends and family members when it is finished, although some sites offering this service also provide for free updates to your site as Baby grows. These updates may or may not be announced to those on your particular mailing list, so be sure to check. Also inquire as to any default recipients on this list: some websites offer to announce your baby’s birth to the local news media, and if this is not something you are interested in you should be sure to email the hosting website.
These web page announcements are often very user-friendly and easily manufactured, requiring no knowledge of coding or complex interactive designs. The host site takes care of the bulk of that for you, while keeping the integrity of your personal design. One thing you might want to check on ahead of time, however, is advertisements: is your baby’s page going to be full of pop-ups or margin ads? This form of free birth announcement might not be as “free” as you think, so be sure to inquire ahead.
If you can’t find what you want for free or don’t want to use the information superhighway, you may be able to find what you are looking for, if not for free, than at a major discount: Stork Avenue (storkavenue.com) offers a wide selection of reduced price birth announcements in their online clearance section. Announcement prices on this page are typically reduced by twenty-five to thirty percent. Freebies are also to be had for those who buy in bulk: Pride & Joy Announcements (newbabyannouncements.com), for example, offers five free thank you cards and envelopes with every online purchase of twenty-five announcements.
Other companies, due to their very unique take on birth announcements, offer free samples of their work for promotional purposes in lieu of free birth announcements. Little Creations (littlecreations.com) is one such company; they specialize in birth announcements that incorporate your personal or professional photos into the layout of the card. Your photo, rendered in black and white, is digitally edited into the announcement of your choosing by the Little Creations staff and then printed and decorated with ribbon. These materials are included in the sample card.
By Rachel Campbell