A few weeks ago, we celebrated Will's first birthday party. Once the guests left and the balloons deflated, we were left with a stack of awesome gifts from Will's generous friends & family. I wanted everyone to know how much we appreciated them coming to Will's party (guests from as far as Chicago and DC!) and I wanted to make some sort of unique thank you cards. At first I had a vision of Will with balloons on the front of a photo card, but the baby didn't feel like modeling and so I quickly gave up and went in a different, messier direction.
Here's how we made some homemade thank you notes in just a few (colorful) minutes:
I started with blank white notecards (from the craft store) and taped them down to some brown paper on my dining room table. Instead of individually painting each card, which could get extra paint inside the card or on the back, I figured it would be faster and cleaner to paint all of the cards at once.
Next step - put some nontoxic finger paint on your baby's sweet little fingers. Don't get too alarmed when he wants to climb all over the table. He'll cover more territory that way.
Make sure he gets every card with some color...
...then whisk him up for a bath while the cards dry. The next morning, remove the tape and - voila - a set of personalized cards made by baby.
Next step is to teach him to write out his own "thank yous".
We got lots of positive feedback from recipients on the cards. I think DIY thank you cards might be a yearly thing that we do with Will. These painted cards could also work well if you were making a set of cards as a gift - just make sure you have a recipient who likes to send snail mail and is okay with abstract baby art (hello, Grandma).
All in all, I'd say that Will's first art project was a big success!
These are so cute! And you're right, it would be so fun to do them each year and see how he progresses!
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