Thanksgiving Centerpiece

Thanksgiving is coming up so we’re going to give you some ideas today about how to decorate your table if you’re having a big dinner to celebrate.

We’re making a centrepiece today. Actually we’re making a two part centrepiece. First of all we are cutting out different shapes of leaves to make sort of a runner for the centre of the table. These leaves are used as a decoration but they are also used as a special keepsake. You can get all of your guests to write things that they are thankful for on the leaves and then you can read them all after your dinner and keep them or hand them out.

So for the leaves, we used a Silhouette to cut out shapes or you can find a variety of leaf shapes and trace them. Pick a range of Fall/leaf colours to use and make enough to cover the centre length of your table.

Next to make the second part of the centrepiece you will need a few more ingredients. You can go to the dollar store, craft store, or grocery store to find supplies.

You will need a couple of vases depending on the size of your table and how much you want to decorate. Size and shape are up to you. We chose three glass vases. One is taller and skinnier for the middle and the other two are shorter and a bit fatter. We decided to go with very simple straight up and down cylinder shaped vases.

You’ll also want to pick out some candles. Again the size and colours are up to you; you might want to stay away from the really tall and skinnier ones though. We tried out some tea lights along with some bigger short white candles.

Next buy some bulk or packaged dried items like beans, lentils, etc. We went with popcorn kernels, red lentils, green spilt peas, and kidney beans because their colours are very Fall like and complement each other.

Lastly make sure you have some twine or thick ribbon that you can tie into a nice bow.

To put these centerpieces together layer your dried food in your vases. You can do them all the same or different, up to you. We’ve done the two smaller ones the same and the middle one different.

You’ll probably want to have at least two different colours per vase.

Place your candles on top and then tie your ribbon or twine close to the top of the vase.

Arrange the leaves on your table and then place the vases in-between.

Now you have a table all ready for a big Thanksgiving dinner!

DIY Thanksgiving Placemats

Thanksgiving is on its way and we’re going to do a post today about getting your table ready. We’ve done napkin ring holders, place cards, and how to set the table before, so we’re going to create some place mats with a Fall – Thanksgiving theme. 

These are really easy to make and the kids can get involved. You can make them as creative as you want to or as simple as you want to. I have made them before for birthdays (one was a circus theme and one was a tea party). 

For our placemats we bought a pad of newsprint from the dollar store. They are quite thin, so you can get a thicker type of paper if you prefer and in the colour of your choosing. Our paper measures 11x15 inches which is a good size for a placemat; that way you can fit the dishes and cutlery all on it.

We created two different ones with different techniques.

 Nicole made one using cut out cardstock shapes. She used her silhouette and made a “Give Thanks” pie. She cut an orange pie top, a tan coloured crust, and rusty coloured hearts for the top of the pie and corners of the placemat and glued them all on. She also printed “Give Thanks” on the crust part of the pie with her glittery brown pen. It’s very cute and sweet.

I made a very Fall earthy themed placemat. I used coloured pencils and a felt pen to outline after I traced my shapes down. First of all I traced a simple little square boarder around the edges using  stencil that I had from a craft stencilling book. Then I simply found a big maple leaf, cut it out and traced it in the centre of the placemat two times and coloured it in. 

Countdown to Thanksgiving - Thankful Card

It’s a new season, Fall is here, so we are starting a new theme for our a blog. Canadian Thanksgiving is only a few weeks away and we are going to do a few posts to prepare for that. First of all we are going to create a card because that’s what we do best. You can give this away to someone who you care about as a “Just Because” card and tell them what you are thankful for them or you can put it with a favour or place setting at your Thanksgiving dinner.   

It’s a real simple card to create. We’ve done it with the Silhouette but you can cut everything out on your own and add some stamping to it.

We’ve cut a 5x5 card from Kraft paper and rounded the corners. Then we’ve done an olive green 3x3 layer and glued it on the card like a diamond. 

On top of the green layer we’ve punched a dark rust coloured heart and a cut out four inch long light rust coloured words (thankful). If you don’t have a Silhouette or cutting device you can stamp/print words on the middle of the green layer in black ink. You might want to do a smaller heart if you print or stamp the words.

DIY Thank You

We’ve moved on past another holiday and the themed blog posts that go along with it (don’t worry we have some more fun themes coming up). It's time to do some catch up now so we are making some cards that we have run out of at the stores. We're going to make some "Thank You" cards. We thought it’d be a good idea to come up with a new one of these as we haven’t designed a new one in a while.

We are always thinking how to use those leftover bits that we have from making our cards and Nicole has come up with a very easy and creative idea which we are going to show you how to do in today’s tutorial.

You will need ink, a “Thank You” or any greeting stamp, embossing powder, a 6 x 4 ¼ inch card, scissors, glue, and three roughly 6 ¾ x ¾ inch strips. We are making a white card and are stamping in black ink. You can go with any colour combination when it comes to strips and ink. Choose something that you like and think goes nicely together. It’s always best if you use three different colours or shades.

First off, stamp “Thank You” on one of the strips. We stamped in black and embossed in clear powder on the orange strip.

Next you can glue the strips onto the card kinda like this...

Then trim the strips like this...

The final product will look something like this. It’s so simple and it takes very little time to make. You can make different versions of it for lots of different occasions plus if you make lots of cards like us, you’re not letting all the scraps go to waste!