@doodlyroses

My time in Salzburg is winding down and I wanted to thank the appropriate people; however, I forgot to bring some of my nice cream-and-blue embossed thank you cards to Austria. I went to a wonderful stationery shop and while it had an astounding collection of soft leather-bound books and Moleskines (I caved in and bought a pocket-sized The Little Prince edition) and paper, I had trouble finding nice thank-you cards. I did get a gold-embossed card for my host mom, but wanted to give different cards to each person.

Being me, I decided to just make my own cards. I went to a children’s store and bought a cheap pack of blank cream-colored cards with scalloped edges, and a 69-cent blank notepad. My idea was that I’d 1) draw something nice on the notepad paper and then 2) stick it to the card. Since I can draw reasonably well, and I’m pretty good at this paper-craft thing, I knew I’d be fine.

I found scissors, tape, and a cup of colored pencils in the desk in my room. That’s all I needed to set forth.

For my piano teacher here, I drew a picture which may or may not be based on the photo of me I used for the background of my About.me page. (All drawings are done with my Pilot Varsity fountain pen!)

For one of my teachers I sketched out one of the views of the Attersee I’d snapped.

For one of the administrators I replicated one of the ink sketches I’d made of the Salzach and shaded it in.

When it came time to assemble my cards I realized that a drawing on top of a plain card just isn’t that aesthetically pleasing. So I turned on my inner MacGyver and hunted around for material to make the cards look nicer. I ended up discovering the little collection of colored Post-It notes I keep in my planner, and the honeysuckle-colored netting that came with the rose my boyfriend had sent to my Austrian house.

I used my white gel pen to write “Thank you” in some form on cut-out pieces of Post-It note, snipped off pieces of netting, and taped it all down. The effect was way more “charming handcrafted stationery” than “Well, you get an A for effort.”

(Oh, and to complement my Attersee sketch, I took a little bunch of unidentified floral arrangement from my rose and stuck it to the card.)

All in all I’m pretty stoked that I was able to make pretty sweet thank you cards out of minimal supplies. Lack of resources can’t keep me from thanking people properly!