our 'thankful wreath' craft

The first name I could think of for this craft was 'a wreath of that which we are thankful.' lol, even just typing that out, it's a LOT to say. So, I shortened it to 'the thankful wreath.'

I found this cute project a day after the death of my one and only crafty thanksgiving decor. It looked simple enough and like tons of fun .. it did NOT miss it's mark.

I saw a few different tips online for how to make the 'skeleton' to the wreath, if you will; from a wire hanger. While it didn't seem all too complicated .. I kinda cheated. I went to our favorite local thrift store and found a homemade wreath, there. I carefully removed the pieces of jolly decor and stashed them away in my 'use these crafty bits for later' box.

I tightly wrapped twine around the wire and hot glued it every so often .. very scientific. :)

I wrapped the twine for 2 reasons; I wanted it to cover the ugly hanger plus I liked the brown as part of the Autumnal theme. In the end, I discovered it was a crooked circle ... but I find it charmingly imperfect. :)

As I was wrapping the twine, the family mixed up a plethora of 'fall-ish' paint colors for the clothes pins.

A quarter of the way through painting the pins, we discovered it's MUCH easier to leave them attached to something to paint them; rather than painting them individually.

While the pins dried, we each made a list of the things we're thankful for. Of course it can't all be prim and proper .. so we got to each include a couple 'silly thanks.' We wrote them on the pins with sharpies and tried to figure out a way to hang it.

The best solution I could come up with to hang this, was a long piece of twine wrapped into a slipknot around the middle of the wreath's wire. I then tied the ends of twine together at the top, to hang it on a nail/hook on the wall.

For the centerpiece, I layered and glued a couple pieces of cardstock after I wrote 'we are thankful for.' Each member of the family got their own corner to 'doodle a little something.' I then ghetto-laminated it (with scotch tape) & punched a hole on top and bottom; attaching it to the hanger with .. dun dun duuunn - twine. :)

Once it was all done .. I just couldn't love it more.