Handmade Thank You Notes

One of my New Years Resolutions is to write, and help the kids write, thank you notes ALL YEAR!  This means Christmas, birthdays, surprise gifts...ALL YEAR!  In a time of e-mail and texting, I want them to understand the personal touch of HAND WRITING notes. 

So, I decided to come up with a fun way to write them.  I figured that everybody would know that I filled in those 'fill in the blank' thank you notes so I went for something that had more child involvement.  This is what I did.

First, I shocked the kids when I pulled out the paint to get hand prints and footprints.  They had such a good time doing it and it also alleviated the stress of a particularly whiny day.

After they dried, I got the kids ready to color.  I folded pieces of card stock and had them color on the inside cover (a bit of personalization).

While they colored I cut out all of their prints and a glue stick.

As they finished up each card, I glued their hand and foot prints on the front, had them help me write 'Thank you', and name and dated each print (not pictured).

One by one, we started talking about what each person gave them and what they wanted to say.  They had some funny ideas.  I put their ideas into complete sentences, helped them to sign their names, and they were done!

I was impressed at how much they understood and remembered.  This was definitely a fun craft to help the remainder of Christmas break go by and teach them something that I am still struggling to learn.

Now...to write MY thank you notes...