art every day month, day 25.

I decided last week that I would do a Thanksgiving craft with my little ones, after seeing this Thanksgiving Tree Craft on Amanda Formaro's craft blog. It was just so cute, and I thought it would be nice to do one and start a Thanksgiving family tradition.

I started out by taking two small poster board sheets and gluing them together at one end, to make one larger poster.

Then we started drawing hands. I traced my two little ones' hands, then mine. My husband did his, and my oldest did his. These would be the leaves of the tree.

I cut them out, and we wrote something for which we were thankful. My husband and I are both thankful for our family, so that's what we wrote. My oldest is thankful for his new bass guitar, my three year-old is thankful for games, and my little one who is twenty-two months old today...well, she was coloring with those markers like a fiend. So I wrote that she is thankful for coloring with markers!

Next, I gave my hubby the project of cutting out grass while I drew the tree trunk. I had to draw it because it turns out we had NO brown construction paper.

The trunk came out nice. After I cut it out I decided to watercolor the sky, since we let Natalie color on the poster with markers. I made the bottom more red/yellow/orange, to kind of look like a sunset. Ian and Natalie both took turns watercolor painting in spots. Once the whole thing was done, all that was left was to glue on the trunk, then the leaves, then the grass. After everything was glued, I folded the grass down a bit and wrote "Our Thanksgiving Family Tree" on the bottom.
I love how it came out! I taped it on the wall and will leave it there through at least the New Year. Many thanks to Amanda for the wonderful idea!