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How to Make a Thankful Tree

This Gorgeous Thankful Tree is a Perfect and Easy Thanksgiving Craft and Fall Decor made with natural materials

Ingredients
  • tree branches
  • fall leaves
  • Paint Pens or Markers We liked the Mattalic pens best
  • Vase or Flower Pot
Recipe Notes

Supplies for this project can be pretty flexible so feel open to work with what you have around you! We chose to go with branches from a Beechnut tree that had fallen in a storm a few weeks ago.

For the leaves, you could plan to print and cut out, freehand cut out from paper or use natural leaves. We opted for natural leaves so we could talk about the different types, sizes, and textures while collecting them on a nature walk.

To write the messages we chose to use paint pens or Metallic markers, standard markers would likely work on most leaves as another option.

We used a large glass vase to hold our tree, you could use a flower pot, large pitcher, or fun decorative bucket.

You’ll just want to make sure you choose an item that has a good amount of weight to it so it will be sturdy with the branches in it and kiddos touching it.

You could always add marbles or rocks to the bottom to help weigh it down a bit more too.

You could punch holes and loop a ribbon through each leaf to hang them up or glue them into place. We had an adult use a hot glue gun to add the leaves on. That way at the end of the season we can peel the leaves off and use new ones next year for less waste.

Optional variation:

You could cut out a paper tree and tape that to the wall to save a bit of space. Then simply tape the leaves in place.

We ask everyone in our family what they are thankful for in the weeks leading up to Thanksgiving and add new leaves each day and then read them off as one of the activities each day.