Birthday Party Thank You Cards

We celebrated the girls' birthdays last Sunday. Their birthdays are only two and a half weeks apart, and since we wanted out of town family to be able to participate, it didn't make sense to throw two parties. That said, it took me a while to come up with a party appropriate for both a one year old and a four year old.

I settled on paint your own pottery. We kept it simple just painting plain tiles. The little kids did hand/foot prints, and the big kids painted free form.

I wanted to make some personalized thank you cards for the guests, and settled on these fun and easy frame cards.

Directions:
- Cut either a 6x8 piece of cardstock, if you want the card to open on the long side, or 4x12 if you want it to open on the short side. Score so that you form a 4x6 card and set aside. (Note: If you use the same color cardstock for the frame/card, you can get two cards from a 12x12 piece of cardstock.)

- Cut one 4x6 piece of cardstock. Then create a frame by cutting out a rectangle 3/4" in from each side. This seems tricky, but is very easy when using a Fiskars (or other) trimmer with the markings on the bar.

- Decorate the frame front. I tried a couple different versions of this, originally random stamping on white cardstock, but I decided I wanted something with a little more oomph.



I settled on this distressing technique using White Daisy ink (which can get a little messy, FYI) and Pacifica and Olive cardstock. You could use Colonial White, or other light colored pigment ink as well. Use the stamp pad as the stamp, and randomly stamp your frame with it until you get the coverage you desire. Let set at least overnight, I actually let it set for two nights (you could also heat set if you are in a hurry).



Choose coordinating stamps, I like having a medium sized stamp and small stamp. (Since the frame is only 3/4" wide, it's hard to use a large stamp.) For the Pacifica cards I used Holiday Red ink and the solid stars from the Party Invitation stamp set. For the Olive cards I used hearts from the Elemental Workshop on the Go kit and the small heart from the Happy Clusters set with Tulip ink. Note that the White Daisy ink leaves a little residue on your stamp and stamp pad, so you want to blot out your stamp pad and take extra care in cleaning your stamps when you're done (I use a baby wipe to make sure I get in all the nooks and crannies).

You can dress these frames up as much or as little as you like. I think they are fine as is, but you can personalize them as I did, or even use cut outs of the stamped images. I used Playful Lowercase and white cardstock sponged with the color of the background paper to create little nametags. Have fun, and be creative!



- Once the frame is dry, adhere it to the front of your card on three sides using Liquid Glass. Insert a photo in the frame (you will have to trim about 1/2" on each side). Write your thank you note on the inside, and you're done.

CTMH Products Used:
Stamps: Party Invitation, Elemental Workshop on the Go Stampset, Happy Clusters, Playful Lowercase
Paper: White Daisy, Olive, Pacifica
Inks: White Daisy, Olive, Pacifica, Holiday Red, Tulip
Other: Liquid Glass