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About a month ago I made thank you cards. Lots and lots of them. With lined envelopes, of course. I love sending paper cards. Writing them feels a little decadent, and opening the mailbox to a pretty envelope makes my day. Some of my friends send wonderful mail, so I have a set standard already.

I again used the pewter design from our invitations, and a calligraphed “Thank You” drawn by my talented friend Amy. Then it occurred to me to snag our return address from our keepsake invitation envelope.

There’s two easy steps to that kind of piracy: 1) ask your calligrapher for their permission first 2) once you have their blessing, take a high-quality digital photo, as straight-on as you can. Then use any photo editing software to up the contrast and brightness until you have a clean image of the text.

A few Gocco screens and much embossing powder later, I was very excited about writing notes. Which made it easier to knock the shower ones out right away. There’s a small trick to the embossing, too. Right after a Gocco press, shake embossing powder over the wet ink. Flick off the extra, and set it aside. When you run out of table space, fire up the embossing gun for the whole batch.

What did you do for thank you notes? Do you think it’s impolite to print Thank You on the front? Some people do. You can say so, I don’t mind - I’m still blissed over the calligraphy.

I’d mentioned that my next 2 posts were going to be on 1) our recent engagement party, and 2) our meeting with our DOC.  Starting next Tuesday, I will indeed be writing about those 2 events, but since this is my 2nd post in one week, I thought I would interrupt regular programming with this announcement - I’ve finally done my first DIY project!

Although we tried to emphasize that no gifts were necessary at our engagement party, some friends and family insisted on being generous.  I wanted to send a special Thank You note because I’m still a little uncomfortable with the idea of all these people showering us with gifts just because we are getting married.  With our $25 Border gift card (one of our engagement gifts) I planned on buying some classy Crane and Co. Thank You cards, but as soon as I saw the wall of blank, colored postcard sized cards, my instinct kicked in to get creative and personal.  And so it begins - the endless obsession with making things matchy-matchy (a.k.a designing everything to tie with one theme).

I’d taken a one-day long Photoshop class a few years ago, and it was the best $800 I’ve ever spent.  With minimal Photoshop knowledge I designed the following two invitations to send as Thank You cards to our guests, with our images masked behind the text.  I think I will send the white paper with colored text to the adults (more traditional) and the kraft-paper brown invites with black comic book text to our friends - since they might “get” the urban, modern funky chic theme of our wedding a little more.

Although very simple, I’m pleased with the results.  The cards are postcard sized, and our handwritten Thank You message and our recipients’ addresses will appear on the back.

Nicole writes in with adorable thank you postcards, based on a Martha Stewart idea.

To create these:

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