Birth Announcement Ideas

In a few days our little guy will be a month old, its so hard to believe he'll be one month. Life is filled with even more joy since his arrival, so glad he arrived two weeks early! The last few days I've been looking birth announcements to send to family and friends, even with face book and social media connecting family. I really wanted to send a special card out to mark is entry into the world. Last week while the little guy was sleeping, I did a little photo shoot. Here are a few contenders, I'm sure before we pick the one I will take another 200 pictures of our sleeping cutie. I wrapped Avery up in  darling hand knitted quilt I received from a dear friend. It's the perfect delicate backdrop for the baby announcements.

I did a little photo work on the one below making the background blurry - not sure if I like that affect?

And and couldn't resist sharing this little picture of Avery in the morning. I love his bed head!

I've looking last some designs at Shutterfly the one styles like are on sale for $ 1.75 per card and I have a coupon for 20% off - so we may go with Shutterfly or go the DIY Route like we did with our Save the Date cards ( read more about our wedding here ) and the Baby Shower Invites ( see them here )Here are the two styles we are digging. I like that both full pictures of baby with detail and feel modern & classic. If we go the DIY route I'll print the cards out at Costo or Kinkos ( love there quick print services )

Which style card do you like? Do you like sleeping babies in Announcements for Awake baby's? Thanks for your help!! Feel free to share your go to source for online prints, and I'll check them out.

PS -- There's two days left to enter the Shabby Apple Giveaway! Enter HERE

Sewing Zippers, Not Hard

Remember last week when I planned to sew two new pillows for our living room, only to realize I didn't have enough fabric. That super sucked. Lucky for me Joann's carries a dark navy fabric that worked well with the fabric I originally bought. I'm addition to making pillow covers, I decided to try using a an invisible zipper. Usually when I sew pillow covers I do an envelope style closure, because the zipper scares me. I love how the pillows turned out! The deep the print and dark indigo looks good on our sofa. Love it!

Not only to the pillows look good, I was able to sew-in the invisible zippers. Can I get high five! Oh yeah, I'm still doing my happy dance.

I conquered the zippers (kind of) Let me explain. I have a standard zipper foot, but invisible zippers turn out best when you use an invisible zipper foot. Well my Joann's sells invisible zippers, but no invisible zipper foots. Which makes no sense to me at all. I used this Zipper How To and improvised on installing the zipper doing and inside stitch and outside stitch. The zippers were actually pretty easy to install, just made sure I pinned a lot and they came out NICE!

For the pillow insert, I used Ikea's 20x20 feather and down pillow. I love this pillow inserts, so affordable yet well made. Next I'll be on the lookout for an invisible zipper foot for the next set of pillows I'm sewing for the living room. Just waiting on the fabric to arrive! So like the blog title states, sewing zippers, not hard and I'm pretty sire they'll be even easier with a invisible zipper foot.

Now that I've conquered my zipper fear.  What's your fear about sewing?