Mary Lynn Rajskub’s Son Valentine’s Birth Announcement!

24 star and comedianMary Lynn Rajskub and her boyfriend Matthew Rolph welcomed their son Valentine Anthony Rolph on July 24th and CBB has the exclusive on his birth announcement!

Designed by Michele Adamsand Gia Russo (a.k.a. the MiGi Girls) who also designed Valentine’s nursery, the Spring Arrival announcement is now available at Tiny Prints. Thenew MiGi Paper line is a collaboration between the MiGi girls andcurrent Tiny Prints designer Kirby Woodson of Petite Alma.

Of the announcement, Mary Lynn told us,

"They have that MiGi style, where they’re kind of retro – there’ssomething sort of familiar about them – they’re sweet, but not toochildish or pastel. I picked the cutest one, with branches and littleleaves and bluebirds on them. They’re adorable, and very simple andstraightforward."

CBB’s Danielle also spoke with Michele Adams of MiGi about the process. Click ‘More’ to read for her tips for the best announcement and an exclusive coupon code from Tiny Prints.

Danielle: How do you approach the design of announcement?

Michele Adams: We have templates with TinyPrints.com, but we don’t always approach it that way. A lot of the set designs that we use, especially from baby custom and the designs that we’re doing for our nursery collections. The one that Mary Lynn chose is actually a design we’re working on right now – it’s not out on the market yet. But we are working with a theme very similar to the one she chose for her announcement.

Her baby looks so cute on his announcement, it overshadows the card itself!

In a way that’s kind of the goal. You definitely don’t want the announcement to overpower the photo – I think the photo is supposed to be the star. So we try to accomplish that. We got lucky with the colors she chose for him, because they did work very well within the announcement. That’s something to consider, especially for a color photo, you try to incorporate some of the colors of the baby’s outfit into the design. That way it all ties together.

Do people usually decide what the announcement looks like first? Or the photo?

You can go either way with it. When the baby is first born, you take so many photos anyway, so if you have some great in black and white or even in color, you can use that as a starting point and kind of pick out your announcements from that and try to tie the colors in together. Obviously if you have a boy, blues and browns are sort of more iconic, so if you dress your baby in those colors you’re bound to find an announcement that ties together with those. The other way is that if you are researching announcements, pick a design that you like, then pick a photo or dress your baby in similar or complementary colors.

Do you prefer black and white or color for the pictures?

Personally I prefer black and white. I feel like it’s more classic and timeless and I guess to me, I don’t necessarily want the clothes to tie in to the photo. For my baby’s announcement, black and white is what I used.

What age should the baby be in the photo?

I would wait preferably three to six weeks, depending on your baby. We got one shot of ours with his eyes open, out of about 100 photographs! A few weeks is good to wait – they’re just coming to life. The first couple weeks are just so busy anyway. I think ideally a few weeks old is best for a good photo.

In developing the stationery line, did you try to incorporate designs from the nursery line?

Right now we have four nursery collections out, and two new ones coming out, but to get those six collections you go through about 50 different designs and narrow it down from there, so there’s a lot more design work that you have left over that isn’t necessarily useable. We found that it wasn’t quite the right fit for bedding or a nursery, so that’s why we decided to use it for stationery. It was too detailed to use in a nursery, but then the detail really popped on a stationery card. It’s a totally different purpose. We start with color palates a lot of times, so there might be certain colors that inspire us, and the design develops from there.

Was doing stationery always a part of your original plan?

Yes. Our plans are to expand into a lot more categories, just because of our background, then Tiny Prints approached us and the timing seemed to work out perfectly. We’re always trying to find ways to extend what we do into other categories.

The MiGi line at Tiny Prints also includes holiday cards, shower invites, and thank you cards.

– Danielle

CBB Deal: Save $15 off $100+ orders when you use coupon code CBMIGI (expires December 31, 2008, cannot be combined with any other offers).