To start I have to say that I am LOVIN’ my new Canon iP4600 printer!  It’s no sexy Epson R1900 wide format dream machine, but I had to compromise ($80 vs. $500) and this trusty Canon is what I settled on!  One of the many things I LOVE is that it can do borderless 8 1/2 x 11 print jobs, like I did here, making it possible to create a full bleed 8 1/2 by 5 1/2 flat card announcement.

This was truly my first project using any sort of Photoshop product, I have been putting off cluttering my brain with one more thing/project for quiet a while now.  To my demise I decided to “invest” in a *new (I haven’t had one for a couple years now) color printer rather than purchasing birth announcements this time around, so there was no getting out of it.  I purchased Photoshop Elements 6.0 for mac, and got to it.

I used some .psd files I purchased from twopeasinabucket.com by tia bennett for the owl and details on the envelopes.  I also had wallets printed to attach to the announcements rather than printing directly on them.  I did this with Ms. E’s professionally printed ones and it seemed to be a hit two years ago as well.  As I am in the habit of doing, I used my favorite textured paper (luxe fino white) from paper-source and as always I just love it.

I used the last of my A7 flat cards from my wedding invitations (my FAVORITE color they don’t make anymore!) to make it quick and easy. With the help of little brown pen’s coloring cards over at Etsy, these beauties were a snap.  Ella enjoyed coloring on them a little too much in some cases, but they were fun, quick, and Ms. E got to contribute a bit, after all she is the one who really scored this Christmas!

I used some foam stickies that I got ages ago to raise the little drawings, and the stamps are both from Impress.  If you haven’t discovered the great deals at little brown pen, you are missing out on all the print-at-home goodness.  Check out the deal were you get to pick any three items from the store for 10 bucks!  Score!  To make your printables even more lovely try printing them on a textured soft white paper like from paper-source’s luxe line.

… and then of course there is always the token card that Mr. K has come to expect.

The red and white polka dots (which I see they don’t have any more, but they were part of the luxe collection) and beautiful chocolate paper are from my beloved paper-source.