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Picture-Perfect Thank-You Notes
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Natalie and I had just completed a stack of thank-you notes for her fifth birthday. Our system of sharing the writing kept her humming along cheerfully. I drew lines on each note for her to fill in the friend's name, the gift, and her signature, and wrote the rest of the copy for her. We also spread the work over three days to avoid burnout. She completed each one carefully, leaving me hopeful that the importance of showing appreciation -- and taking an active role in it -- had sunk in.
Not a day after we'd mailed our notes with a great feeling of accomplishment, Natalie received some stellar thank-yous from other friends whose birthdays happened to fall near hers. After I practically slapped my forehead in classic "Why didn't I think of that?" manner, I tucked these ideas away for next year.
Commemorative photo card
One savvy mom snapped a few shots of all the children at the party together. Since everyone had come dressed up as fairies or princesses, the effect was especially adorable. Using the online photo service Shutterfly (www.shutterfly.com), she uploaded the winning shot, and made it into cards (about $10 for a set of 12). When your child is on the card, perhaps she'll be more tempted to leave her signature on the inside as well. At the very least, the thank you doubles as a sweet memento of the event. Natalie's had hers on her dresser for ages.
Illustrated thank you
Clever mom #2 had her daughter draw a picture depicting the party on the lower half of a 9 x 11 sheet of paper (long side down). When she finished her fabulous scene of girls decorating clay creations and playing pin-the-tail-on-the-cat, her mom flipped the paper up, and wrote a blanket thank you inside. Then she color-copied it, and had her daughter add the friend's names and sign her own to each folded card. Voilà. Original and heart-felt.
And now I'm off to write thank-you notes myself -- to send to these two moms for their bright ideas.
Member Comments On…
Picture-Perfect Thank-You Notes
When my sons were younger, now 16 and 13, they loved to paint water color pages. The kind that come coloring book style. We had so many that I would have the boys use them as Thank You's. They could write a little note or just thank you and their name. This was they could share their "creations" and say Thank You at the same time.
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At Christmas time I was shopping online when I found a t-shirt that said "Santa Rocks" on the cafe press website. You can order it in a broad range of sizes so I ordered one for each of my four children. On Christmas morning when we got downstairs to the Christmas tree we quickly took a series of photos in front of the tree surrounded by a pile of presents. After Christmas, I went onto Shutterfly and uploaded the best shot along with the caption "and so do you!" So when you looked at the front of the card it said, "Santa rocks and so do you!" Then we wrote a short message of thanks inside. They turned out really cute!
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For my daughter's 4th B-day we had a HUGE turnout. The theme was pirates and princesses and everyone dressed up.
We included a wallet sized photo of each gift giver with the Birthday princess in their thank you note. This really works out great since we could sort out who gave what an hour after the party while the photos were printing (after all, my daughter knows her friends' names better than I do).
What is also great is that the rule is: she can only play with a gift once she's written the Thank you card. Needless to say, the thank you's were finished before the next school day and so I sent the thank yous and lost and found items along in her back back at that first opportunity - whew! The party was officially over :)
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We would take a picture of my son with each opened gift along with the giver. This way we would know what went together. The picture became the "cover" of the thank you cards we later made.(Made doubles of the photo, one for our birthday book & one for a thank you card.)
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One year my son had his party at home with a bounce house in the back yard. The kids opted to play rather than take time to open presents. So when my son opened his presents later, I took a picture of him with each gift. The thank you card included a picture of him with the gift a friend gave him.
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I took a picture of my little boy hugging the person who had given him the gift. They made very sweet thank you cards!!!
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We plan to send a picture of my sons playing with the present with each thank you note. They're 3 so, they're just going to glue a thank you note I write into their cards they color.
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for my son's first birthday - which was a birthday/housewarming party - we had 150 guests. I took a photo of my son surrounded by his gifts and put it on a postcard and then sent handwritten thankyou's on the reverse side. Postcards are an easy way to send a thank you - less white space to cover so less guilt for writing a short note!
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