Child-made thank you cards.

I love having three boys.  I really do.  However, if I had one complaint it would be that they refuse to sit down and do anything crafty with me.  It just kills me! 

They all have their birthdays around the same time of the year and with lots of thank you cards needing to go out, I wanted to make an original card rather than something bought from the store.

Now, the problem is, there is no possible way that I am going to get my 6 year old to sit down, create 15 cards and write, "Thank you for my present" on each one.  It just won't happen.  I needed to think of a way to make ONE original card, and mass produce it! 

The answer:  Take a large painting (that they did at school), photograph it, then print out as many cards as you need!  This takes no time at all and your kids will love sending out their original art to all their friends and family.

Here's how it all went down.  Caleb, age 4,  had drawn a very pretty rainbow at Pre-School.  I asked him if he would mind if we wrote on his painting and he was proud to offer it up.  I asked Ethan, age 6, to write a note on the top of the picture saying "thank you for my present."  They then each signed their names to the bottom of the painting.

I put the painting on a piece of white foam board so that it would blend in nicely with the background.  The carpet just wasn't doing it for me.

I cropped the picture a bit and then printed it on cardstock.  I made two different sized cards, postcard & 5x7 folded.  I was able to get four postcards per piece of paper. 

I ran into one problem with the larger 5x7 cards.  When I printed it out, the picture printed on the top of the page and didn't fold correctly into a card.  The easy solution:  I rotated the picture upside down and printed it out.  That way, it folded into a card perfectly.

Now all I need to do is get Ethan to sign his name to each card and we'll be all set!  (I'm not looking forward to that).  Wish me luck. :)

~Val