Thankful Banner

It's so hard to photograph against a window!

This little project came together rather quickly. I decided I wanted a "thankful" banner this year, so I searched Pinterest for inspiration. I pinned this:

Source: organizeyourstuffnow.com via Pinterest

Nice and simple--that was my inspiration. This particular project can be found at Organize Your Stuff Now, but this really was just my inspiration. I turned it over in my head for a while--I knew I wanted leaves that would spell out "thankful," but I wasn't sure if I wanted the kids involved--should we paint the leaf shapes? But I really wanted simple brown paper. Perhaps block out the letters with painter's tape, have the kids paint, and then peel them off? But that wouldn't really work with brown paper, either, although I think it would look great, just in a different way. Eventually, I decided this was my project. (Sorry, kids.)

There is no need, if you live in New England and find humongous golden maple leaves littering your driveway every morning, to look farther than your front door for a leaf template, so that is what I did.

I traced a big maple leaf. If you like this idea but don't have any maple leaves to trace, you can find my simple template here. I do mean simple--I didn't even erase the pencil lines after I went over it with a Sharpie. I traced my leaf onto cardstock to make a firmer template, then cut eight leaves from brown paper bags. I'd say this was recycling, but every time we want a brown paper bag for something, we have to get one special, since I always take reusable bags to the market (and have been doing so for so long--at least a decade--that when I began, I got funny looks from the cashiers). So it's not quite recycling, I suppose, but it got me the look I was going for.

I happen to have a set of foam alphabet stamps that were a good size for these leaves, so I brushed a thin coat of black liquid acrylic paint onto the letters and stamped my leaves.

This time I tried a morning shot. That's fog out there.

I punched two holes in the top of each leaf and strung them with twine, then I tied the twine at each end to the first and last nails we have at the top of the molding--we have five nails up there, to hang stockings from, of course.

We don't have a fireplace and mantel, so this large slider window is my go-to spot for hanging. I love this simple little banner. And if you balk at tracing and cutting eight leaves, I can tell you that it was oddly soothing, to repetitively cut out leaves. I enjoyed it.

As an added bonus, the slider is in the dining room, where we eat all our meals (having a galley kitchen), so we have a beautiful, simple, visible reminder to be Thankful for all we have.

See more creative folks here!