For my first baby, I made my own birth announcements out of paper and stamps before the baby was born.  I left spots for the photos and a page for printing all the baby info later.  These were cute, and while I really liked them, I decided to make it easier this year and go digital.  I’ve been learning a lot about Photoshop recently, and while I love working with that, nothing beats the ease of use that I have from Stampin’ Up’s My Digital Studio.

I bought it when it first came out, and recently I upgraded to MDS 2, which has even more options and is still extremely user friendly.  Because I also wanted the professional card stock look that you get from places like Shutterfly, I decided to try out SU’s printing services, whose prices dropped recently by almost 50%.  Each announcement was $1.45 and came with an envelope (they are 5×7 in size).  While I think that’s a great price, I still only bought about 10 for family.  For the others, I printed a 4×6 photo.  Both options worked well and took much less time than making a paper/stamp version, and I was still very happy with the result.

The SU ones also came with a printed back side, but I also decided to order some photo printed backs, glued the two photos back to back, and then even my 4×6 ones were double sided.  I didn’t know how these would turn out, but I actually loved them!  Although SU has the nice cardstock feel, the photo paper still gives crisper images, so honestly it’s a tie for me.  The 4×6 photos are so much cheaper, so I’ll probably use those in the future for birthday invitations that I make.  I love how these turned out, and it only took me one evening to design everything.