Thankful Tree

Bursting with gratitude?

Got a hefty stash of felt handy?

Well here's the tutorial for you.

I must give credit where it's due - I get (*cough* steal *cough*) lots of ideas from Pottery Barn Kids. Eli loves to play in there, and while he plays, I get inspired. That's where the idea for the Thankful Tree was planted, as well as the Paper Bird Mobile. I don't take photos (the fella scolded me for that one) I just look and let the ideas ruminate for a while until they bust their way out via my fingertips. To begin, sew four sheets of green felt together like so:
(That beige sheet should be green, but I only had three green sheets).

Then cut it into a bushy/tree shape por exemplo:
Now, because my sheets weren't all the same color, I decided to felt in some green roving to mask the different shades. You can skip this step if you have enough green sheets of felt.
Make some branches and a trunk out of brown felt:
Voila.

Then cut out a buncha leaves out of fall colored felt. Add numbers for the dates of the month. I sewed my numbers with a very tight wide zig zag stitch. But you could cut numbers of out felt and stitch them on by hand or machine (don't worry about the edges - felt doesn't fray - love the stuff!).
Then stitch the leaves on, leaving the center portion of the leaf, and the top wedge un-stitched, so that you'll have a little pocket into which you can tuck a note of thanks.
Because November's been a busy month, I just got this finished today, so the boys and I played Gratitude Catch-Up at dinner tonight. Dizzy totally gets it. Right out the gate - he's thankful for his family (melt). Then he's thankful for us one by one (including me, with a little goading - "How about the one who made the tree?")

Then he exclaimed, "The next one's for Luca and Inara!" - his besties. Heart...warmed.

We were thankful for his school, teacher and class buddies...our yummy food, especially when prepared by Daddy, and being so healthy. And now we're caught up.

The plan is to continue discussing gratitude and write something we're thankful for each of the remaining days in November. I even plan to take this with us on our travels.

Gratitude abounds...