Child Crafted Christmas Thank You Notes

The thank you notes are mailed!  *deep sigh of relief!* It always feels so good to get those thank yous checked off the to-do list.  I'm pretty militant about having my children send thank you notes; they're are a small way to practice gratitude. This Christmas my children, the only grandchildren on both sides of the family, received MANY treasured gifts.  Adelae, now four, is able to write pretty well and understand that all of these toys and books were given to her with love.  This year she's writing her own thank you notes - kinda!

I wasn't planning on posting about this little project, and it didn't turn out at all like I had planned in my mind - but the process was so fun and easy that I thought I'd share these tricks with you, my dear reader friends.

Materials

White Copy Paper

Pencil

Marker

Scissors

Tape

Red Glitter Paper (optional, or other fun paper)

Photo Print of Child with Gift

Have your child write "Thank You!  Love, (Name)" in pencil on white copy paper.

Use marker to trace over your child's penciled message.

Cut out each word.  If some of the spacing is a little "off" trim out the letters individually.  Place the words/letters on the paper so that "Thank You" is on the top, the center of the paper is blank, and "Love, (Name)" is on the bottom of the page. Tape the words in place.

Now for the fun parts!

Writing one thank you is do-able for a little one, but asking them to write 15 or more is nothing short of torturous for both of us.  Instead, take the cut and pasted thank you note to the copier.  I had the greatest copy guy help me.  He was charmed by my little Adelae's lettering, so I liked him straight away! As I talked to him about the project, my curly mustached copy boy friend suggested that he take my original and copy it so that it prints red - brilliant!  I didn't even know that was an option, did you?  Before we knew it we were happily out the door with our bright bud green card stock with red print!

What about the empty center of the page?  This is the space we used to customize each thank you - not with words, but with pictures. Line up the presents.  If you have uber generous uncles, aunts, grandparents, etc, ask the child to select one favorite gift from each giver.  Snap pictures of your grinning giftee; one picture for each gift.  Edit and print pictures.  I also trimmed mine, er Adelae's, down so there was no background showing.  These little steps are where I get into trouble because it makes a simple project so much more of a process!

I have a circle cutter, but sometimes I think the old fashion plate tracing is easier!

Originally, I wanted to have Adelae glue the pictures on top of a large red Christmas ornament to match our Baubles and Bread theme for the season.  I'd just planned on cutting out big circles out of red glitter paper and adding a little gold foil rectangle and real wire hook.  In the end, they were just as cute with the picture glued to the red glitter circle alone.  Sometimes less IS more, I suppose! 

I did the cutting and Adelae did the gluing. 

That's it!

I did write a personalized note on the back, but they really were Adelae's thank yous; throughout the process she was able to reflect and in some small way acknowledge all of the kindness shown to her throughout the Christmas season.