Sparkle Crafts

Sparkle Craft: Watercolor Thank You Cards

In this week’s Martin & Sylvia: Saturdays! story, “Picture Thank You Cards”, Martin and Sylvia think about all the fun they had on a recent trip to their Grandma’s house. With Momma’s prompting, the two decide to create thank you notes for their Grandma, but run into a bit of trouble when Sylvia realizes she can’t write. Daddy helps by introducing the idea of reading – and drawing – pictures, instead of words, to let Grandma know how thankful they are for all they got to do and see on their trip.

Today we’re going to be making some thank you notes of our own – both hand-painted and graphic, these beautiful cards will be a joy to both send and receive!

You Will Need

Watercolor Paper

White Paper

Watercolors (liquid or solid)

Paintbrush

Scissors

Glue

Markers

What To Do

Think about the recipient. To whom will you be writing your thank you notes? Why are you thanking them? How would you like to express your thanks? Martin and Sylvia drew pictures and wrote a little key so that their Grandma could see and read what they enjoyed. For our watercolor thank you notes, my little ones decided to make thank you notes for their Mimi (their grandmother). We thought back over our recent trip over the holidays and all the fun we had. Instead of doing picture words, however, my little ones really wanted to send something – flowers. Since that wasn’t a possibility, we decided to use some cut flowers we recently picked up as inspiration for our thank you paintings.

Paint! Paint! Paint! Use a small palette of colors for your paintings – we used pink, red, yellow and green. Liquid watercolors are easy for little hands to use and can be even more vibrant than your standard solid palette watercolors. Let your little one be inspired by something from nature – flowers, plants, shadows, clouds. And now the fun part – paint! Your little one may want to paint two pictures – one for their thank you note (since it will be cut up) and one to send along to the lucky recipient.

Assemble your card. Once your watercolor painting is dry, cut it out into either circles or triangles. The graphic shapes are a fun contrast to the flowing shapes made by the watercolors. Arrange the shapes onto a folded piece of plain paper and glue them down. You can use as many or few shapes as you’d like. Then draw – or write – your message inside and send along the thanks and love!

Explore More & Make Connections

How else can you express your thanks with your notes? Could you add some picture words in your circles? Could you paint some picture words like Martin and Sylvia?

Have you received a thank you note or other mail? How did it make you feel? How can you help pass along that feeling to someone else?