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How to make inexpensive, customized thank you cards (plus a free printable)

This summer, we took Emma to visit Kevin's aunt and uncle who live in Northern California. When we took her to the beach, the water was a little bit too cold for her. . . but she LOVED playing in the sand! I mean, loved it. I've never seen her so intrigued by anything before.

When we got back, Kevin's aunt and grandmother decided that Emma needed a sandbox in her own backyard as an early birthday present, and a few days later, we received an adorable turtle sandbox in the mail.

(In other news, they still make turtle sandboxes! I had one of these when I was little, and am quite pleased that now my own little girl gets to play in one.)

Well, the novelty of the sand has not worn off, and we've spent a lot of time this summer out in that sand turtle. But why am I sharing this story with you? Well, when someone gives you a special gift, you want to send them a special thank you card. Something that will really let them know that you appreciate them. So I decided to make my own thank you cards out of (what else?) a photo of Emma playing in her sandbox. And now I'm going to share how I did it with you, just in case you're looking for an adorable (and inexpensive!) way to tell someone, "Thanks!"

Here's what you do:

Step 1: Print out this cute thank you sign (or make your own, have your kids make their own, etc.) 
Step 2: Take a cute picture of yourself (or, in this case, my daughter) with the gift and the thank you sign. Here's the picture I used for the sand box thank you. I love the look of intense concentration on Emma's face. She takes her play very seriously! 
Step 3: Get the pictures from your camera onto your computer. For me, this means importing them into iPhoto.

Step 4: Copy the picture into a word document and hit enter a bunch of times so that the picture is at the bottom of the page. Think about where you want the fold in the card to be. Leave a bunch of space on the other side of that imaginary fold. ;) Here's what my word document looked like: 
Step 5: If you want the card to fit into a certain sized envelope, right click on the picture to change the size.
Step 6: Print, fold your paper in half, and use a paper cutter to trim the sides. I decided to leave a strip of white on each side of the picture in order to make a little border. 
And that's it! You're DONE!