Thankful Tree

I've seen many versions of this all over the blogsphere and I made my own this year. I cut off some branches from a tree outside, stuck them into floral foam, put them into a vase I had leftover from an old flower delivery and covered the foam up with pinto beans. Then I dug into my scrap paper box and pulled out fall colors. We spent and evening cutting out leaves and punching holes in them. Then each night, starting November 1st, we each wrote down what we are thankful for on a leaf and tied it to the tree with twine. At the end of the month we took them all off and re-read them and talked about how many blessings we have in our lives. I put it away for next year but think it will be a wonderful tradition to do each November. Some of the things that got written down included Elmo, our Savior, food, employment, self-healing bodies, toys, tortilla soup, our family and many more. Here is our tree after the first week. It ended up much more full but I forgot to take a final picture. The best part about this project, I didn't spend a dime. I had everything on hand already. Those are the best kinds of crafts!