You guys, I have a confession for you: I’ve never once sent thank you cards from Henry’s birthday parties! Horrible, right? Somehow it would never make it’s way to the top of our post party to-do list, especially with his birthday right before Christmas. So embarrassing! Last month when HP sent me one of their beautiful new design tools, SPROUT, I thought it would be the perfect opportunity to make sending thank you cards a fun creative project for Henry using some of its amazing features like easy 3D imaging and dual touch pads for design and drawing directly onto a digital project.

So this birthday (PS it was a surprise party!), I was determined to not only be a polite and well mannered adult, but also start to teach my son the same by sending thank you cards. Here’s how Henry made his own personalized thank you cards all himself using SPROUT…

We were really excited to check out this brand new design tool from HP. The dual touch screens (one HD touchscreen and one dynamic interactive touch mat) made for some really cool interactive coloring and music games that Henry found almost immediately on the machine. We also messed around a bunch with the camera, scanner and 3D illuminator. There may or may not be some scanned Edie faces on our SPROUT currently! It’s easy to use and the touch screen is really fun to use. I love the idea of hand lettering and drawing directly onto a digital project.

For the thank you cards, Henry had the idea of scanning some items from the party for his card design. We picked out some leftover balloons, candles, and confetti and arranged them on the mat. Then with the push of a button it scanned and captured the image for us to manipulate and use in our digital card design.

Next we used the pen tool (but I also love to just use my finger as well on the SPROUT) and he wrote out thanks for coming in his adorably wobbly first grade handwriting. It’s easy to erase and manipulate what you’ve written so it fits in the design you’re creating. Henry really wanted to make all his letters look at nice as possible so he easily erased and re-did quite a few until he was satisfied with the result. Such a little perfectionist (totally not from me).

Next we saved the designs and printed them onto white card stock in a postcard size. I gave him a scripted template and a list of who gave what gift. He set to work on his own and finished the pile of cards in no time.

Stay tuned…another fun SPROUT project coming up soon!

Thank you SPROUT by HP for sponsoring this post and helping us design with such a beautiful and interactive new tool.