Wonderful Wednesday...Thankfulness Tree

I have a cute, quick decoration idea to share for Thanksgiving. I think it turned out really cute and the best part...this can be done very inexpensively! I paid $2 because all the other supplies were on hand!

We came home from school on Halloween with a pile of tree limbs cut in our yard. My brain started spinning. I practically knocked the poor gardner over trying to get to some of the smaller branches. Free craft supplies...get out of my way!! Now that I have made my tree, I am pretty annoyed that I didn't collect more.

This project all began with this little guy:


I know, I know...we clearly are not having Fall weather. This will be easier for the rest of you. I literally had to sit and pick off each of the leaves. Pretty silly I know, but you do what you have to do.

My $2 were spent last week picking up this:


It looks pretty nice in the picture, but it really didn't look so good. I solved the imperfections by changing it. I sprayed the urn with a coat of Dual Coverage Rust-Oleum Primer. Once it dryed, I sprayed it again with Dual Coverage Rust-Oleum Heritage White Satin. It looked so pretty.


I should be telling you that I pressed a piece of green floral foam into the urn, but I didn't have any. Remember, I am an impatient crafter. So I used what I had on hand.


I filled my urn with sand! Yep, life is tough here in Southern California. We have to pick the leaves off ourselves to look fall like and fill our floral displays with sand. Should I tell you about the 80 degree weather we had today too? It is November isn't it?


I made sure my branch was the correct height and then pulled it back out of the sand. I covered the sand with a layer of spanish moss. It looks way better than the sand. If you are lucky and you live in the south, you could probably walk right outside and pull some out of your tree. Mine came from a bag at Michaels that I had left over from another project.


I like it even like it plain like this. However, I wanted more...something from the kids. I took out my Cricut and a few pieces of scrapbook paper that I had on hand. I was thinking of using brown craft paper, but I had used up my last pieces the other day on another project. So, I improvised and used something else that I had.


I used my Doodlecharms cartridge since it will cut out leaves. I cut out as many leaves as I could from two sheets of scrapbook paper.


I had my kids write down something they were thankful for on a leaf. Then I took the leaf and tied it to my tree branch with a piece of twine.


This project could not be easier! Well...maybe if I had bare branches with no leaves!


It is really sweet to see what each of my kids is thankful for.


It warms my heart to know that my little guy is thankful for his sister!


I left a pile of leaves in a silver dish so we can add as the season continues. It would also be really cute to just toss the extra leaves around the bottom of the tree as if they fell off. Go give this project a try with your kids and find out what everyone is thankful for!