Thank You Cards for Care Bear Party

These are the photo thank you cards that I designed to go along with the Care Bears birthday party. The photos are the ones I took at the party using my home-made Cheer Bear photo prop. I made a simple fill-in-the-blank format so that Mia could help fill out the cards because I think that this helps teach gratitude, or at the very least, it helps with teaching social conventions associated with gratitude. My goal was not just to have her write "thanks for the gift," but also to let her know that we were thanking people for making her day special. For me, having a child's birthday party is about giving her an experience that she will remember as being a fun time spent with friends and family, and I want to pass this belief on to my children.

Materials:

• red card stock
• paper trimmer
• word processing software
• printer
• scissors
• scalloped scissors
• photos
• clear adhesive photo corners
• scrapbooking adhesive 
• white printer paper
• envelope template (optional)

Directions:

1. Using a paper trimmer, I cut the 8 1/2" x 11" card stock in half (hamburger fold) to get two pieces of paper. Next, I folded each one in half (hamburger fold again) so that I had two cards.
2. For the cover of the card, I found an image of Birthday Bear, copied it into Microsoft Word and adjusted the size so that I could fit 8 images on the page (in landscape format). I printed and cut out the images with scalloped scissors. Then, I affixed them to the center of the cards using scrapbooking adhesive squares.
3. For the wording on the front, I used the word art feature in Microsoft Word to type "Caring is Sharing!" for the upper arch and the date of the party on the lower arch. The font was "Care Bears Family" and it was a free download found here. I fit 9 of these upper arch over lower arch per page in landscape format. After printing, I used scissors to cut them into banners, following the curves of the text. Lastly, I cut into each end in a "v" to make the flags on the end of each banner. These were adhered to the front of the card using scrapbooking square adhesives that had first been cut in half.
4. For the inside of the card, I had the photos printed. Then, I used my paper trimmer to cut them down so that they would fit inside. I used clear scrapbooking photo corners, one per corner, to affix these to the inside of the card (on the left).
5. For the fill-in-the blank format that I put on the right side of the inside of the thank you cards, I again used the "Care Bears Family" font to type: "Dear _____________, Thanks for sharing in my 6th birthday fun! Thanks also for the ______________________________. It made me smile! Your friend, _____________" I used this image of Cheer Bear to tie it all together. (This was also used in the invitations, and of course, the photo prop.) I was able to get 4 of these fill-in-the-blank templates per page in portrait format. After printing, I trimmed them with my paper trimmer and adhered them with the scrapbooking adhesive squares.
6. The rest was up to Mia. I helped her fill in the names and the information about the gifts, and then she signed her name to each one.
7. I made some envelopes with white printer paper and my template that I bought many years ago at Michaels, wrote each child's name on the front, and sealed them with some Care Bears stickers that were a gift from my brother. You can use store bought envelopes if you don't want to make your own. I just have been making my own cards for so long that I don't typically have the right size envelope on hand, so I make those, too.