Thanksgiving has always been a fun holiday for me, because I host the holiday festivities and because it’s a holiday that reminds you of what is really important in life. I wanted to make a Thanksgiving craft that I can look back at and be reminded of what I was, personally thankful for. Of course, include the kids in this project and have them share their thoughts of gratitude too. Start a new tradition! Every year, add a new thought of gratitude to your wreath.
I came across a very easy looking Thanksgiving wreath and thought I’d step outside of my own crafting comfort zone and try to make my own version of one for myself. Since I stopped doing photo scrapbooks, I had a lot of leftover cardstock laying around. All I really needed to go get was a styrofoam wreath. So, I took a quick trip to the craft store.
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DIY Thanksgiving Wreath
Materials needed (contains affiliate links):
Styrofoam wreath (a green one works best)
Straight pins (lots of them)
Card-stock (reds, yellows, oranges & browns)
Brown ink pad
Sponge paint brush (small ones)
Steps:
- Get all your materials (simple enough, right?)
- Fold your Card-stock into fourths. I did this by folding it in half and then half again.
- Make your leaf template (I made mine out of a cereal box)
- Start tracing your leaves onto your paper
- Trace your leaf to all the colored pages (you should get 7 leaves to a page (28 per paper))
- Crumble up all your leaves. Once you crumble them, it’s time to uncrumple them and start antiquing using your brown ink pad and a sponge brush. I started on the outside and worked my way in and varied them a lot (as no two leaves are the same after all, right?). In my case, my brown ink pad ran out of ink, so I had to improvise. I lightly dipped a sponge brush into a small cup of water, then took a Crayola brown marker and rubbed it on the sponge brush. Granted it did take a little longer, but it did work.
- Start pinning your leaves in any way you’d like all around the front and sides of the wreath.
- Once you have covered the wreath, step back and admire your work because you are DONE!
*NOTES: You can have your child write their thoughts of gratitude on the leaves before you put them on the wreath. You can also add to it by simply unpinning a leaf, writing your note, then repin it where you removed it. Add your thoughts to the wreath every year and make a nice family tradition out of it. I have mine hanging on my front door and every year, I get so many compliments on it.
If you make one, I’d love to see how it turns out! 🙂
