Snail Mail: Puzzle Love Notes

I’m not sure about you, but around here summer has definitely hit! We put on the air conditioning for the first time of the season yesterday- usually we can keep the house cool by opening and closing windows/curtains depending on time of day but it’s gotten so hot we needed some help. With the heat, the kiddos have been crawling around in just a diaper so we’ve had some fun getting messy. I love to do water play with them (either outside or with a pan of water on the tile floor) and last week we did some more painting with them. I mixed up the paints (I made the same edible/baby safe paint as I did here) to paint a sign for our new niece and while we were at it made one for my sister too. I should let you know, you can use this idea for pretty much anyone– babies or not- because everyone loves snail mail. Write them a love note, paint them a picture, or draw you and them having so much fun doing your favourite things. Something like that would be pretty awesome and I’ll wait for you to pop it in the mail for me ;)

Since my sister lives out of town I thought of how I could get the sign to her. At first I thought I could take a photo of the kids with it and then send the photo but that’s kind of boring. Then I remembered this postcard project by Oh Happy Day and knew I needed to send them in pieces! Since they were all coming from us, I sent a few in each envelope so she will get five packages of puzzle pieces in the mail. When she puts the pieces together it’ll spell out a little love note for her.

I used a poster board and wrote her a note- then let the kids at it with ‘handprints’ (not that we got one handprint out of it). Once your masterpiece is dry, create a grid on the back to separate it into pieces that will fit in your envelopes. I numbered them to help her assemble them. Then chop them up!

Once they’re chopped up, they’re ready to send! Then all they have to do is piece the puzzle together as they get it! If you’re really generous, you could include a pretty washi tape in your first package. One can never have too much washi tape.

I’ve made a diagram of how I sent mine- I wanted to make sure I didn’t send them in order, so she’d get to piece the puzzle together. If you like, here it is!

Also, the lovely girls from Lolly Jane reminded me how much I need to have vertical images. Did you notice I don’t have even one in this post? So I made one out of two horizontals. I’m going to have to work on remembering to turn my camera!

What else could you send like this? A blown up photograph? You could even cut them into puzzle pieces instead of squares. The possibilities are endless… I’d love to know what you’d do!