One of the best parts of spring is all the new life you see everywhere. Well, we’ve got some new life growing in our family as well this spring! Today I want to share our fun and crafty announcement for baby number four that got the older kids involved.
Announcing a new baby is always so exciting; even four kids later I still love coming up with cute ideas to spread the news. Although I do have a habit of telling absolutely everyone I come into contact with right away anyway haha! But official announcements just never get old.
There are so many cute puns and sweet ideas on how to share the news, but this time an idea popped into my head that I hadn’t seen much before. So I thought it might be fun to share on here as well!
Baby Announcement with Older Siblings
We’ve done secret message crafts in the past, but I thought it would be so cute if we did one to share our baby news! I also love the idea of getting the older siblings involved since it’s such a big change in their life, too. Which reminds me that my poor, sweet 13 month old (and MAJOR mama’s boy) has no clue that he only has 6 months left of being the youngest, sigh…
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Anyway! We turned our love of secret message crafts into a baby announcement. It’s pretty straight forward, but I’ll give a quick step-by-step with some tips.
Secret Message Baby Announcement
To make this announcement, you just need a few things:
- Large white poster board
- White crayon
- Watercolor paints
- Paintbrush
- Optional: tablecloth, craft paper, just something to put behind the poster board to protect the wall or floor
Here’s our quick and easy process for making this creative baby announcement.
1. Write the message on the poster board.
Of course you’ll need to hang the poster on the wall or lay it on the floor, but then the first step is writing the message. You’ll use the white crayon to do this, and make sure to write it on heavy. But try to avoid breaking the crayon (like I did) because it’s just not enjoyable to write with half a crayon.
My message is already written in this picture, can you see it? No? That’s the point! The white on white is surprisingly hard to see until you get up close, making it perfect for reveals like this. Between it being hard to see and having a baby jumping on my back the whole time, it didn’t do any favors for my handwriting LOL so maybe write it out ahead of time.
2. Set up the camera.
If you want to capture the watercolor fun as it happens, have the camera set up beforehand. I usually use my actual camera, but wanted the pictures to be long for IG, so this time I used my phone. I just stuck it on a short tripod and set the whole thing on a pile of books and magnatiles, very professional– ha.
The main thing is to try to keep it in the same spot for the most part. My camera did move around a bit, but not too much. It makes the video compilation feel less chaotic, especially since in this instance the kids are already doing a lot of moving around!
3. Let the kids paint and reveal the message!
Now onto the fun part! Set the kiddos up with some watercolor paints, a cup of water for dunking the paintbrushes in, and some paper towels for wiping the brushes off as needed. Then they can paint the poster board however they like.
Here are a few tips for the painting part:
- Encourage them to not spend too much time trying to paint the letters. The crayon wax will resist the watercolors, but after too much rubbing it will start to change colors as well. You can see on ours where my 2-year-old may have gotten a little too persistent in one area.
- If you have little hands around, put the water cup out of reach, and maybe the paints too. This is kind of obvious baby proofing stuff. But I hoped my 1-year-old would be able to ignore it and he couldn’t haha. I did leave the paints by the poster board but the kids had to go back and forth to get the water, which is why it isn’t pictured.
- Consider a color scheme. I let my kids color however they wanted and I love it! However, if you like the overall idea but feel it’s a bit crazy, simply encourage the kids to stick to 3 adjacent colors, like blue, purple, and red.
- Have the kids start at the top and work their way down. This way, depending on the phrasing you choose, it might take longer before they reveal the word “baby”.
4. As they paint, take a bunch of pictures.
Of course a main reason for this is to document and share, so be sure to document so that you can share! I mostly sat by the camera and watched, taking a ton of pictures. They’re kids, so there will be many blurry pictures to delete, which is why the more pictures captured– the better!
Since my kiddos painted in mostly light colors and also, as mentioned above, tried very hard to prove they COULD paint over the crayon (lol), I decided to make the last picture of the craft have the words written over in black marker. I thought it was just as cute of a video, but it helped the message come through a bit clearer!
5. Turn into a video and share!
This was my first Instagram reel, so I did not realize you can’t use still pictures to make a reel! So either way, you need to use another source for turning your pictures into a little movie. I simply used Google Photos and it was super easy!
On Google Photos I just selected the pictures I wanted to use, clicked on the “+” sign along the top, and selected “movie”. From there you can reorder the pictures if needed and decide how long each picture will be shown before moving on to the next. It was perfect for what I wanted and made making a reel super easy for this newbie!
I have an Android phone, so I’m not sure how different it is for Apple users. This website gives some good options on how you can turn your pictures into a video though.
Most options, including Google Photos or reels, allow the option to add music to the video as well. So pick a cute song to go with it and that’s it! Share it wherever you share exciting news and see how much people love it.
I really loved doing this for our fourth (and final!!) baby announcement. It was really important to me that the older kids were involved, and I love that they could get crafty with it as well. It’s a super fun and unique option to consider next time you have a special little bundle to tell the world about!
Head over to my Instagram to see the video there, since I can’t download it with the music. You’ll also find other fun crafts and activities that our fam is up to 🙂
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