Thanksgiving Pretties - Day 7

Day 7 - Home Decor

Day 7 of Thanksgiving Inspiration focuses on Home Decor and fall crafts. Too bad we don’t have another week before Thanksgiving!

Joys of Home made this little sign of the season as a visual reminder of what we need to be thinking and hooked you up with a tutorial. Love the header in her blog too!

Melanie gives us her Thankful Banner tutorial. It’s a fabric and paper holiday banner pennant to hang from the fireplace. Love all the banner ideas that are popping up every where! It’s a fun and inexpensive craft.

Jennifer gives us her paper Turkey hand print wreath tutorial, turkey spoon craft, Indian dolls, and lots of other fun Thanksgiving crafts. My favorite is the Pilgrim & Indian dolls that you can use as place cards since there are pictures of everyone. Go to the Thanksgiving crafts link above and scroll down about 1/3 of the page.

Robin did a Give Thanks Banner. It looks like it's a Thanksgiving Advent Calendar that has pockets for notes of what you're grateful for. Lots of cutting involved with this one and I doubt any of us could get it done between now and Thanksgiving but there’s always next year!

These pretties are over at The Memory Zone. They made a few table decorations from their scrap stash. Did you know that you can go to your local Ben Franklin, purchase cardstock and use their die cutting machine!?! They have just about everything you can imagine.

You can decorate for the season by using your kiddos school projects, like Holly's Haven. What a great way to display their work! This gal also has some vintage music framed and she has a link for you to get it for free. Lots of vintage graphics to choose from! Love that!!

Heather shows us her decorated Thanksgiving table setting using her late Grandmother's china and napkins folded into lotus flowers. Love the hollowed out pumpkin vase for a centerpiece! This gal has a lot of fun stuff on her blog. I'm off to do some grocery shopping for the big day...

Thanksgiving - Day 6

Day 6 - Traditions & Gratitude

Day 6 of Thanksgiving Inspiration focuses on gratitude and family traditions. I hope you'll be inspired to do one of these activities with your family this year.

World of Homemaking does the Turkey Day Awards! Ask each family member for their nominations and be sure everyone gets an award. For example, "best haircut of the year" or "toughest survivor of a home renovation." You make awards in these cute pine cone scrolls tutorial.

A tradition that would be fun to start is a Thanksgiving Book. Every year each member of the family is given a sheet of paper to write down the things for which they are thankful. You then put the sheets into a binder and save them so that next year you can look back and see what everyone wrote the year before and then compare it to the current year.

High Heeled Mama made a gratitude garland. You gotta love that black mantle with the pretty leaves.

Jennifer submitted her picture grateful album with a mini tutorial so you can do it too! This is so pretty! I love the idea of using pumpkin patch photo’s and the quotes she used are awesome.

Debbie submitted her Thanksgiving blessing book to help focus on what we're grateful for. She does one of these books each year. How special is that!

Jo-Ann submitted her family tradition; every year the children make their thankful lists on the chalkboard in their kitchen. Jo-Ann takes a picture of it to capture these special blessings. Her story she tells about how that list changes as children grow up is touching.

Rebecca submitted her family's tradition; She makes a thankful turkey and throughout the month everyone writes something they're are thankful for and adds it to the turkey. He gets nice and fluffy by Thanksgiving. With just a few days until Thanksgiving though, you can cut out your feathers and have your company write on it when they arrive. Then you, your older children, or another adult can assembly it and show everyone after dinner.

So this one’s not really a tradition but rather a fun game that you can do with the kiddo’s after dinner. I tore it out of a magazine last month and I’m not sure which one. It is called Name That Turkey Tune. It’s a bit of musical amusement! Have everyone take turns crooning familiar songs, replacing all the lyrics with the word gobble. Choose a category for each round (Christmas carols for example) and see who among the nonwarbling guests can be the first to make out each melody. I’m sure there will be a lot of laughter with this game and who knows…maybe it will become one of your traditions! I just had to include this photo from Friends too. It was either that or Mr. Bean.

Thanksgiving - Day 5

Day 5 - Thanksgiving for the Kids

Day 5 of our Thanksgiving Inspiration focuses on the kids and some fun activities you can do with them to help make the day a little more memorable. Enjoy!

No Fuss Fabulous has such a fun kids table theme, nuts! They can play "How many acorns?", printable acorn maze, name card, and much more. I’m going to get out those hazelnuts I have & do this for my girlies and have a prize involved and I’m printing out the acorn maze as well!

Stacy submitted her marshmallow Pilgrim Hats, a Thanksgiving craft/treat for kids. So here’s my thoughts…you could put a blob of peanut butter on the top of the hat before dipping it in the chocolate. Now doesn’t that sound yummy!!

What's Cookin? hooked us up with this yummy turkey cupcake.

The Fruit Gobbler makes a fun editable centerpiece or hors d'oeuvre for the kids while dinner is in the oven.

No Fuss Fabulous has some fun ideas for your kiddos Thanksgiving table. Simply tie your napkins with raffia or spare ribbon and insert one to three crayons. This will go well with the next one too!

You can download these fun coloring projects for the kids right here - http://www.alphamom.com/holiday/2009/11/thanksgiving_day_kids_table_cr.php. The kids can decorate their own table with this. I love the fun turkey centerpiece for them!

There are many crafts to choose from like the Thanksgiving Paper Plate Turkey Craft. Have fun making and printing some of these treats!

Thanksgiving - Day 4

Day 4 - Thanksgiving Organization

Day 4 of our Thanksgiving inspiration features several women who have figured out how to organize the day to make it run smoothly. I'm all about good organizing ahead of time. Get reading quickly because the clocks ticking and Thanksgiving is right around the corner!

This one’s my favorite. Look at LW Designs Thanksgiving organizer! It's a beauty. A place to put your place cards, coupons, guest list and menu. My Tip: This organizer could be modified or a second one made for all your recipes, magazine clippings, blog print outs, decorating ideas, invitations, and traditions, etc. So cute!

A Well Organized Space also has a detailed list of to do's to make your Thanksgiving Day a success.

Organized A to Z has a couple good tips on getting organized for Thanksgiving. I especially like the tip on setting your table the night before. I do this for everything I host and it saves tons of time. That helps make the morning less stressful and more fun.

These are a few great way to help us all stay organized to keep the stress low and stay focused on our families.