I got about 4 feet of brown craft paper and creased it down the center. If yours isn’t going in the corner, you won’t need to crease it.
I sketched a tree trunk shape. If you actually took and passed art in high school, yours will look better than mine. Thank heavens for pottery and social dance!
I cut the trunk out and taped it to the wall using blue painter’s tape. I’m sure there are better ways to do it, but I was working with what I had.
Then, I sent Keller out in the backyard to find a big old maple leaf. I made a template and cut 40 or 50 leaves out of different fall colors of construction paper. You could use cardstock or whatever. You could also find someone that has a die cut machine. Cutting 5 at a time made it go pretty quickly, though. You can find my template here. If I were doing it again, I’d make the leaf a little smaller, so I could fit two to a page.
Tonight, we sat down and talked about all the things we’re thankful for and each chose 2 to write on leaves. Campbell said Blake (my brother) and Santa. That’s the chance you take when there’s a 3 year old in the mix.
We taped the leaves on the tree.
There’s a bowl of leaves on the mantle so we can add to it as the month goes on.
The plan is to read them all on Thanksgiving to help us remember how blessed we really are.
