Salt and Watercolor Thank You Cards

For quite a while I've loved using this watercolor technique with kids, but we've never used it as a way to create thank you cards before. It's such a great strategy to use with a wide age range of kids as it is both easy and colorful. 

Little Brother especially got into this project, and in the end they are so colorful and pretty I was glad we wound up with a few spares for other times we need thank you cards. 

Materials:
Thick, white drawing paper (I precut our pieces into 3.5 inch x 5 inch pieces)

Watercolors - regular kid watercolors work fine

Paintbrushes and water

Salt - either coarse or fine grain salt, although I prefer coarse salt

Permanent Marker

White card stock (cut into 4 inch  x 5.5 inch pieces) - folded in half to make a "card"

Glue stick 

Before the boys started painting I used the permanent writer to write "Thank You!" onto the pieces of drawing paper. (Older kids can do this themselves.) The boys then watercolored on top of the words and they stayed perfectly legible. 

While the watercolor was still wet we transferred the cards to a cookie tray and gently sprinkled salt across the top of the card. 

Do not rub in the salt, just sprinkle it onto the cards. 

When done, set all the cards aside to dry. As the paint dries the salt will soak up some of the paint around it and create white speckles/designs across the top of the paint. 

After the paint and salt dries, the salt should be able to easily brush off. After it is brushed off the cards will be left with small white specks and designs across the surface of the card. 

I then used a glue stick to mount the dried, painted rectangles onto the white card stock. With a little careful smoothing, we had a whole set of beautiful thank you cards. 

We're still sending some out thank you cards from Christmas (gulp! That got a little late this year.) But we also have extras to tuck aside for other occasions. 

This card technique could also be used to create birthday cards, get well cards, or other types of greeting cards. How might you envision using them?