Both my kids still believe and Santa and I am so grateful for that. My oldest who is seven is already asking questions such as "how can Santa go to all the houses in the world, and how can reindeer fly...I know reindeers can't fly!" but his sister is quick to remind him of Santa's magical powers. She is convinced that Santa can make reindeer fly :) I will be very sad the day my kids figure out that Santa doesn't really exist and I really hope they are not too sad themselves when they find out.
In the meantime, we milk the Santa magic for all it's worth, starting with Santa letters. Since Kira can't write on her own yet, she dictates the letter and we type it out in a very faint font. She then traces the words and signs it (she also usually adds a drawing). Kael did the same in the past but since he's now in grade 2, he will be writing his own letter. Although we allow the kids to ask for anything their hearts desire, they know that Santa will only bring one present. Maybe because of this, their lists usually only contain three or four items. I always love to see what they ask from Santa, and treasure each of the letters. The best part for them is when the reply from Santa comes in the mail. I am truly grateful for those Canada Post employees who take the time to write back to the kids. When an older kid told Kira that Santa wasn't real, she said to me "but I know he's real because he wrote me a letter". Priceless, right? The key to getting a letter back is writing early so we are planning on sending our letters off in a week or so. It pays to be prepared!
Here is the layout template I'm going to use for documenting the letters.
For today's tutorial, I'm going to show you how I apply drop shadows to my elements. I like my layouts to look like "real" layouts so I always put drop shadows on anything that should be dimensional on paper. There are several ways to apply drop shadows but I like to do all of mine in one step once the layout is finished.
Please come back tomorrow as I share the download link for the templates from this week! I have been working hard to convert them so that they are more generic (sorry, I didn't leave any of Crystal's beautiful kit) .