I hope everyone had an incredible New Years Eve! I’ve been visiting my boyfriend in London for the holidays and we took the weekend to drive down to Brighton, one of my favorite beach towns. It has narrow, cobblestone shops like Diagon Alley from Harry Potter and a cool old pier with carnival games and an arcade (I’m weirdly obsessed with arcades). We rented an Airbnb with ten other friends and spent the day eating, playing games and indulging in lots of champagne. Heading back to school next week will be a very sad reality.

As I head into the new year, my first project is always to write my thank you cards from Christmas. It’s so important to show appreciation for the kindness others have shown, and acknowledging all of the love and support around me helps me enter the new year with a positive attitude. I have a lot of thank-yous this year, and I decided to make my own cards with these simple yet elegant lavender prints. Flower prints are so easy to do and so pretty. You can make them with pretty much any flowers, but I used the leftover lavender from my trip to Ojai this past summer (see my lavender sachets here).

If I could make a thank you card for every one of you that reads this blog, I would. I am so appreciative of the support from all over the world.

Materials

• Blank cards (I used white and olive green)
• Acrylic paint (I used purple, dark green, and lavender)
• A gold leaf pen (I love this one here)
• Lavender (or whatever flowers you have in the house)
• Small Paintbrush

Mix your paints on a thick piece of paper or a palette until you have the colors you would like to use. I chose deep purple for the green cards and dark green for the white cards.

Using a brush, carefully dab the paint onto  the lavender until it is fully coated on one side.

Gently press the paint-coated side of the lavender onto the front of the card. Then repeat the process until you’ve filled the card to your liking. Be sure to choose multiple stalks of lavender so that there is some variation in size and shape.

Allow the cards to dry before you add the additional color details. I chose lavender for  the green cards and a gold for the white cards. Using a thin paintbrush, add small dots of lavender paint to the dark purple prints, and add gold details to the green prints using the gold leaf pen.

Once they have fully dried, you can begin writing your cards!

Happy New Year!

-Kirby