Putting pen to paper to say thank you…do you or don’t you? I have to say, up until a moment in time yesterday, I do.  I mean I did.

I’m quite relaxed about receiving them – as in not receiving them – but find when I’m on the writing-side of things (and have therefore, hopefully, been the lucky recipient of something lovely) a letter, in theory, only takes a moment to do and unlike so many other things in life, it does tend to have the exact desired effect.

One of the things we did whilst over in the UK was to have ‘boy’ Christened.  A pretty low key affair, he still amassed lots of beautiful presents that of course, post freezer clear up, needed to be thanked for.

I then thought through the logistics of sending a proper Smythson smail-mail letter: first off, I’d have to email about half the people to ask for their addresses (they’ve moved/I never had it in the first place etc); everyone I was writing to was my age more or less – i.e. no tricky great aunts/Dowager Countesses à la Maggie Smith in Downton (they couldn’t make it, thankfully) and we live in Singapore (the people I am thanking do not). Sending a letter by airmail doesn’t really make it any harder to do but it makes people more understanding if they don’t receive a traditional posted thank you.  Or I hope it does.

And to the rescue came this lovely site that costs just £7.25 a YEAR ($15) to join.

Each and every card you send from it – there’s no limit – is included in this price. I’ve been a member for about 4 years now and their e-cards are birthday staples: no airmail postage, beautifully animated (she trained as an illustrator at Central St Martin’s) and the music is wonderful.

I used to dread getting an e-card in my inbox, they are somehow such a bore to bother even picking up, but these are utterly different.

The site is Jacquie Lawson and it has a rather charming homespun feel (homepage above). She does all the animation from her home in West Sussex.  So this time around, I decided on their ‘flutter by‘ thank you note and everyone, bar the boys (of course), wrote back to say how much they’d loved receiving it.

As a card sender on this site you can also opt to get an alert to tell you when your card has been picked up, which I love.

If a ‘proper’ thank you note takes no time, this takes even less.  I am converted – and besides, all my Smythson lickable envelopes have stuck together thanks to the humidity…so perhaps it’s just as well.

Smythson image courtesy of lorien.me