Craft Corner: A Thankful Tree Grows In Brooklyn

With the Halloween sugar rush just now wearing off, and the December holidays ahead, it can sometimes be difficult get kids excited about Thanksgiving. Sure, there are family, feasts, football, and parades to look forward to, but turkey and dressing aren’t always a huge draw for a picky 5-year-old.

When it comes down to it, Thanksgiving is a time to remember the ones we love, and to give thanks for all of the wonderful things in our lives. A great way to get kids thinking about this concept is with a thankful tree — a craft project where families write down the things that they’re thankful for on fall-colored leaves, and then hang them on a tree.

One look on Pinterest, and you’ll find thankful trees in every shape and size . I’ve always liked the idea of using a tree to decorate a wall in our son’s room, so we went big — really big. That said, this project is easy to customize, so definitely adjust to whatever works best of your home.

I wanted a more three-dimensional look, so we decided to use pieces from an old styrofoam cooler for the trunk.

After measuring the wall to see how tall we wanted our tree to be, I laid out the foam pieces and cut the sides to give it more of a tree shape. I also gave it a bit of texture, and carved my son’s initials into one of the squares.

Pro tip: if you have outdoor space, cut your styrofoam outside. Despite having a backyard, I did not do this, and ended up with tiny styrofoam balls all over the apartment. Ten years from now, I’m still going to be finding tiny styrofoam balls all over the apartment. It was a giant mess. Learn from my mistake.

We went with mounting tape to hang our trunk, so it was very easy to stick up on the wall.

Pick your favorite shade of tempera paint for the trunk, and brush it on your styrofoam.

Making the branches and leaves was a lot of fun, and a great place for the kids to help. We used brown butcher paper, but you could use paper bags, the paper they stuff in packages, newspaper — there are lots of options. Just go with whatever you have on hand.

Cut your paper strips into different sizes, crumple them up, and then roll them into a tube like shape. I secured the branches to the wall with a staple gun, but if you don’t want the holes in your wall, you can use command strips to mount the pieces.

To cover up the cracks between the styrofoam pieces, and to blend the branches into the trunk, I attached chunks of my crumpled up butcher paper to the trunk base with Mod Podge. Since you want that rough and textured look, you don’t have to worry about the paper being even.

For the leaves at the top of the tree, take crumpled up construction paper, and bunch the pages together at the ends of your branches. Once again, I used a staple gun to attached the “leaves” to the wall.

I like a nice punch of color, so we added quite a few leaves to the top of our tree. Once you’re happy with the look, cut more distinguishable leaf shapes out of construction paper. These are your thankful leaves.

Over the next couple of weeks, have the kids come up with something that they’re thankful for before bed, and write it on a leaf. Stick them on the wall (we just used masking tape), and before long, you have a fluttering thankful display to accent your tree.

The best part? Our son is talking nonstop about Thanksgiving now.

Our project was such a hit, that we’ve decided to leave the tree up all year — changing it with the seasons. Hopefully, your family will have just as much fun creating your tree. Happy crafting!

Have a fun family craft? Emil editor@bklyner.com, and share it with us!