A little bit of fall...

I love fall.  I don't over decorate for fall because I really do it up for Christmas.  Honestly...I just don't want to store stuff for Fall.  I do have a few favorites, though.

With Thanksgiving coming soon, here are a few things around the house.  Some of them give a little nod to summer vacation...but you'd never know unless you asked :)

I love this harvest pumpkin.  It has a jingle bell on it :)  It's on the pantry door and it gives a little jingle every time it opens.

 I love this wooden platter.  I picked it up at Target. The rocks inside?  They were picked up on several hikes on our Colorado vacation this summer.  They are natural,

they are neutral, and they are a great reminder every day of  all those wonderful family memories.

Here is my little twig night light.  I love it...  Funny story - one night my husband tried to blow it out.  He thought it was a candle :)  My blown class pumpkin - picked it up at the grocery last year.  

And my little Give Thanks resin pumpkin from Wal-Mart.

On the baker's rack are my pine cones, my tree bark, and my cinnamon sticks.  I love seeing this every morning.  It reminds me of nature, and the fall, and warm nights by the fire.

I also love my dice.  They are hand carved stone.  We picked them up on vacation this year at Garden of the Gods in Colorado Springs. They remind me every morning just how "lucky" I truly am; and that life is more than just a roll of the dice.

Our Thankful Tree is up and it's sprouting leaves... Here's the quick version of how simple it is to put it together.

First I picked a vase.  This is one I've had for years, but flower pots, urns, weighted baskets, they all work equally as well, too.

I filled the vase half full with pebbles and decorative rocks.  I've also seen a more modern version with glass pebbles.  That's a sparkly look and ads a little juxtaposition between the sparkle of the beads and the natural element of the twigs.

After that, I had to choose just the right stick or twig.  One of these just happened to fall from a tree in our backward and landed on the deck. I knew when I saw it that it was the right shape and size.

The second twig I "borrowed" from a neighbor's yard.  He wasn't using it yet :) Kayla was devastated that I would collect a twig from my neighbor's landscape:  (bonus)

Next came the fun part.  Usually, I find a pattern online, use a cookie cutter, my imagination, ask my kids to do it for me...whatever gets the job done... but, next  we cut out leaf shapes. 




This isn't a specific kind of tree, so we use many shapes.  We find the more types of leaves we use, the more fun it is.  We're a little quirky...why shouldn't our tree be quirky, too?







Each night, we each take a leaf, write what we're thankful for, and tape it to the tree branches.  

Here is our blank finished product.  We started adding leaves the night of November 1... It's starting to fill up quickly, now...

I hope you enjoyed a visit to our home.

I wanna know, what inspires you?  Do you keep mementos around to remind you?  Do you have a special crafty tradition you create each year?

Only By His Grace,

Billie

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