Friday, October 23, 2009

Thanksgiving Tree Idea and Template

blog pics 021 I’ve been seeing a lot of Thanksgiving ideas online lately, so I thought I’d go ahead and share what we are planning to do this year… and hopefully every year from now on! 

A couple of weeks ago I had a whole day to myself while my husband took M to his family farm and they picked apples in the orchard.  So what did I do with my free time?  Why, I made something of course.  I can not stop myself…

We plan to do a Jesse Tree for Advent this year.  We did one last year and it was a lot of fun for M, plus a great way to sneak in a lot of quick Bible stories – one per evening. I’ll write more about the Jesse tree in November.  Anyway, I drew a tree with bare branches and then realized it would be perfect for Thanksgiving too.  I always love something that has more than one use. :)

In fact, I’m guessing there could be a lot more uses for this – like a seasonal tree to decorate with felt ornaments.  Maybe snowflakes in winter, flowers in spring, green leaves in summer, red and orange leaves in fall…

So, I uploaded the template I made, enlarged it, then printed it and cut it from some brown flannel.  Here’s the paper pinned to the fabric:  blog pics 013 It ended up being about 24 inches long and maybe 15 to 18 inches wide (my estimation powers are not great so don’t hold me to that!).

I made another flannel board for it (foam core board and flannel) and attached it with some gold-colored tacks so the branches would not be floppy.  I plan to cut leaves from some fall-patterned scrapbook paper and we will each write one thing for which we are thankful on a leaf each evening of the week before Thanksgiving.  We’ll attach them to the tree with more tacks.  :)

I’m really excited about this idea, I think it’s going to look nice!  I’m so pleased with how the tree turned out.   And it’s going to be nice to have our focus on what we are thankful for instead of just how are we ever going to stuff all that food into ourselves.  ;)

If you are interested in making one like this, feel free to use my template.  You can download it here.  Be warned that the cutting can be a little tricky in some places.  You can find the original small version here if you need a visual to help you out while you are cutting.  This is my original drawing, so please link back here if you make this and post about it. 

Have a beautiful day! :)

5 comments:

  1. Love it. Tell about the Jesse Tree sooner than later! I can't wait!

    ReplyDelete
  2. I am looking forward to reading more about this too!

    ReplyDelete
  3. I like this. I really want to instill gratetude in my girls (and me)! I love the idea of writing on the leaves and posting them on the tree. What a great visual reminder of all our blessings!

    ReplyDelete
  4. Great idea! I think it is very important to start teaching our children what it means to be thankful.

    ReplyDelete
  5. This is a beautiful tree and a great idea. Interestingly, I've been thinking along the same lines - making a gratitude tree for Thanksgiving with leaves of thanks. I am still thinking of the medium though - my thinking was craft foam that would be pinned on the fridge with magnets, and since I have two left-hands I want to appeal to my husband to actually implement this thought :)

    ReplyDelete

Thank you for taking the time to leave a comment; I love reading them! If you ask a question and don't receive a personal reply, check back here for the answer. Often I reply via comment to something that might be of interest to others.

ShareThis

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...