Thank You Cards and... A Special Invitation

Tera and Richard... brown sugar is the secret ingredient with which you are working for this week's Throw Down.  Remember, the Green Bay game is Tuesday, December 30.  I recommend (due to the holidays) getting your item in the mail no later than Friday, December 26, in the a.m..  Christmas Eve could be better.  Good luck and may the best recipe win. 

Good morning, everyone.  This is the last weekend before Christmas, so for many of us it will be filled with last minute shopping (as shocking as that might seem to many of you), baking, and wrapping.

Free time is a hot commodity, so I'll be brief.

Today we're talking thank-you notes.  If you have kids, this is the perfect kind of project to do this weekend.  Set your kids at a table with paper, glitter, glue, and scissors and let them design their own thank you cards while you are in the kitchen baking.

Nan Anderson, an occasional visitor and "visiting craftswoman" on our blog, is the inspiration behind today's idea.  Nan also has three kids.  She is VERY creative and, on top of it all, she is an impressive photographer.  Which is to say... Nan aptly photographs many of her children's creations.  Earlier this season, she showed me how she uses her children's artwork to create fun stationary.

As if on cue, Matthew showed up at home today with an envelope of Christmas projects he made in school.  To be honest, none of them are so great (or truly original works of art) that I feel compelled to keep them.  Normally I would use them to decorate his bedroom door for the holidays and then get rid of them (yes, toss them in the garbage) at season's end.  Last night I did hang them on his door.  And, yes... I will thro

w them away at season's end.  

BUT... this year I also photographed the projects.  This year - in honor of Nan's suggestion - I will also use Matthew's Christmas decorations to create personalized thank-you cards.  Here they are before and sometime this weekend I will post the after (I learned my lesson about promptness last weekend).

Enough about thank you's.  Now let's talk invitations and then I'll be off for the day.

I love this.  I am so excited about this, I have to share it with someone.  If you love it too, feel free to steal it.

Yesterday - out of nowhere - Matthew said he was going to invite Santa Claus to his birthday party (in April)!  Did you hear me?  Matthew wants Santa Claus at his birthday party!  Then it hit me.  We can  do that!  Last year the beach.. this year the North Pole!  That's it!  This year, the theme for Matthew's birthday party will be a winter wonderland.  We will visit the North Pole.  Hot cocoa, snowman sundaes, scarves, Christmas invitations, holiday party plates, cups, decorations, a decorated Christmas tree, holiday games and a craft, and yes... Santa Claus will show up!  Surely I can hire a Santa Claus 

in April (what else are they doing?).

I love this idea and Matthew will think it is magical.  I'd love to sit and chat, but I have to go.  There are sales going on right now and I have to stock up for a birthday party in April!

Signing off until Monday... or actually until now, Sunday night at 9:23, when I return to post a picture of some of our homemade thank you notes.  They're kind of fun in person.  Don't get me wrong, we won't be putting Peggy out of business anytime soon, but Matthew loved seeing his "art" turned into real life cards.  We could have had a field day with lots more colored paper, glitter, and stickers.  Maybe next year.

Overall, I am a believer in the idea of transforming all kinds of my kid's artwork into thank you notes.

Now I'm signing off until Monday... for real.