Baby Announcements

They're done! The 100 baby announcements are finally done. Boy was this a doozie of a project. They look simple enough, and I thought they would be, but my inexperience made them a little more difficult than they had to be. I have a tendency to come up with a really cool idea, then realize midway through that maybe it wasnt the most doable idea. These announcements are case in point.

Coming up with the paper and color scheme wasnt too difficult, it was based on the baby's room decor and the mother's personal style. She has a black chandelier in the baby's room and I used that as part of my inspiration. Wouldnt it be cool, I thought, to use a black chandelier piece on each announcement?! Oh yeah, way too cool! See reference above about doability of an idea... Yeah, those little black chandelier pieces...impossible to find. Zero craft stores in the area had them. I Googled, and Googled, to no avail. I hit up my bead experts and still came up empty handed. So then I went to "the city", an hour away, and they didnt have them either. I finally settled on a little teeny tiny black charm I found in the jewelry section of Michaels. But how disappointing, its so little. Okay, I can make this work, I thought. So I added a small matching bead on each side of the charm. Okay, this will work. Again, see reference above regarding doability of idea. My initial thought was to place the chandelier piece on a jump ring and thread it through the ribbon. Ive done that tons of times and know that it is doable. These teeny tiny charms and beads...not so much. Hmmm, jump ring is too thick for the charms. As if searching for these silly things wasnt bad enough, now I had to find a way to get them on the announcement. I'll save you from the boredom of too many details, and believe me, there are lots of them, but I (I meaning my mom!) finally had to settle on threading microscopic wire through the beads. Hmph, simple enough...until you have to do 100 of them.

And I couldnt resist taking a picture of my number one fan...she was definitely thrilled with the box, not so much on what I was working on. But none the less, her support is much appreciated. ;)

So without further ado, I bring to you,

"the announcements"...ta-dah!!