Simple print thank-you notes

I set out the last of our tempera paint and some notecards for Starboy to decorate some thank you notes after the holidays. He wasn't too interested, so I showed him how to make a simple print by painting on one half of the card, and pressing....or by pressing a wet, painted card onto a dry one, making two cards.

He loved it. Though the prints this time were not as beautiful as the process.

 

 He couldn't stop making them. The beauty of the project, of course, is that one always needs notecards, and a stack of notecards makes a great gift.

We dried them on trays

My dream is one of these painting and drying racks (pictured above) like Miss Molly has, but that's a bit dear in both dollars and space at our place. So our next-best solution was to get a bunch of plastic trays from Ikea ($2 each), and stack them for drying projects in a small space. The sides on the tray keep the mess contained, although it does inhibit the painting a bit. And you can't beat the price. We only have about eight of them, but I'd like a few more—that's only enough for two kids to paint four pieces.