Well, one by one, they’re graduating from pregnant women to actual MOMMIES, and my dear friend Liisa was the first!

Liisa (and I hate to call her by her first name, since I NEVER do, but I want to protect her privacy) and her husband Clovis are the proud parents of an adorable, cuddly, precious little boy they named Xavier.  Throughout her pregnancy, Liisa swore that they were going to name him “Commander” – I think everyone was a little relieved when we found out that he had a real name after all .   I was commissioned to create their birth announcements, and I wanted to do something unique for them.  Something that would reflect their interests, and their personalities… something different.

Clovis and Liisa are both comic book/sci-fi fans, so I worked out a handful of ideas around the phrase “Welcome to Earth, Commander.”  Clovis asked if there was a way to incorporate something from 2001: A Space Odyssey.  I (having never seen the movie) did some Google research, found some very interesting inspiration, and this is the result:

The end result: a mock movie poster based on the original design for the film.

I asked Liisa and Clovis to send me some pictures of Xavier to work with, and the blue blanket worked perfectly to create an Earth-like effect around him!  I paired the A7 glossy flat card with a gorgeous deep blue metallic envelope to enhance the “outer space” feeling.

Another angle - note the movie-themed text and the beautiful metallic envelope.

The comment I’ve received the most about these (well, besides the choruses of “Oh, what a sweet precious adorable baby!”) is that people love the slightly scientific touches with the numbers on the invitation – the date, time, and height.  Those little details are so fun, and they definitely add to the overall effect.

Military time on a birth announcement - now that's unique!

“Commander,” it was an honor to be able to design these for you and help welcome you to the world in such an entertaining and interesting way!  You have the coolest parents on earth.

Kate did some research and decided that she liked the current trend of the photobooth strip-style pictures for a Save the Date card.  I came up with the idea of making the photobooth strip a removable magnet instead of just printing the images on the postcard.   Keeping her colors (green and chocolate brown) and her theme (apples!) in mind, I whipped up the postcard portion of it in Photoshop:

The Save the Date Postcard, with blank space on the left side for the magnet.

Then, we set up a quick little faux-photobooth area in front of the living room curtains and my husband did a photoshoot with the two of them.  We chose the four cutest poses and assembled them into the magnet:

The detachable magnet with four photobooth-style shots of Kate and Chris

The magnets were attached to the postcards with a very interesting glue that worked way better than I imagined.  I tried a million different things before finding this little guy:

The ZIG 2-Way Glue Pen. Worked like a charm!

With the magnet attached, the finished product looked like this:

The completed Save the Date card.

I used Gumdrop Green envelopes and printed the return address on the back flap in chocolate brown.  They were a huge hit with the guests!  I hope they’re even more impressed with the invitations .