Each year as I flip my calendar to November, I start thinking of ways to show my gratitude. After all, this is the season of thankfulness. Take a look around and you will see the words ‘gratitude’ and ‘thankful’ at every turn – pillows, art prints, advertisements. But what is thankfulness really about?
Is gratitude meant only for the monumental moments in life?
Should we be looking for it within our everyday tasks?
As I sit and think about this, I know that the season of thankfulness is more than just a holiday. Everyday tasks are a simple reminder of how blessed our lives can be, everything can look like a thank you if you step back to find the beauty in the ordinary.
But in the spirit of Thanksgiving lets give a round of applause to the big and small moments we are grateful for this year.
Last year I started the tradition of using thankful tags to showcase what my family and I are thankful for. You may remember that last year I used the gratitude cards as tags and hung them from eucalyptus branches.
This year after finding a piece of drift wood on the beach I decide to use the thankful tags as a wall hanging.
Basically, the premise is this: make your wall hanging and hang on the wall, print out some tags, gather your family to write down what each person is thankful for, and clip them to the string. Throughout the month you will have a beautiful display of all the things you are grateful for. Most importantly, you will have practiced and encouraged the act of thankfulness. Grateful hearts are priceless sweet friend.
The wall hanging is super easy to make, I’ve created two different gratitude tags you can download and print for free (see below on how to get them!)
Choose to use both or just one of the designs.
GATHER YOUR MATERIALS
gratitude tags | driftwood or large wood branch | spray adhesive
feathers | glitter | faux leather cord | string
Start by printing the tags in color on cardstock. I like to use one that has a slight texture to it, but you can use any type of cardstock you have on hand – or buy some here.
Depending on the size of your family (and wall hanging), print off the quantity needed. I ended up with 14 feathers on my wall hanging so I will need 7 of each tag to clip to feathers. Print and cut a stack of tags so you are prepared ahead of time and don’t have to scramble around when it comes time to jot down your blessings.
After your tags are printed and cut, set them aside and start working on your feathers. Spray glue is the fastest and easiest way to decorate your feathers, but make sure to cover your whole work space with newspaper or butcher paper (you don’t want to leave a sticky residue on your table).
Lay your feathers flat in a row along your butcher paper, and then lightly spray the feathers with a spray adhesive. Stay 6-8 inches away from your feathers and spray with quick continuous strokes. While the feathers are still tacky sprinkle glitter on top of your feathers. I choose to use my fingers to sprinkle the glitter, it gave me more control of where I placed it verses sprinkling straight from the container.
This is the fun part, you can go super glam and put lots of glitter, or just give each one a dusting. Have fun with them and don’t feel like each one has to be the same. Let your feathers dry for 15-20 minutes.
By the way, I’m so in love with the peachy color of these feathers.
As your feathers dry, tie the leather cording on to each end of the stick forming a triangle when hung. This is how you will hang the wall hanging once finished, so make sure it is tied on securely (I triple knotted my leather on to the piece of driftwood). You might also need to play with how long your cording is depending on how far down you would like it to hang.
After you have your cording secured tie a long piece of string to the middle of the wood. Starting at the top of the string, add feathers by knotting them to the string. Leave several inches in between feathers and work your way down knotting more feathers, varying of up their shape and size.
The middle row is your anchor and you will work out from it. I found a row of 4 feathers was long enough, but depending on how far you want it to hang you can certainly add more.
From the center work out adding more rows of feathers by repeating the previous steps, but with each row added from the center decrease the number of feathers by one. Make sure to keep your pieces of string long when tying them to the wood, this allows you plenty of room to tie your feathers without making your rows too short.
My rows ended up being 4 feathers in the middle, then 3, then 2. I started each row’s starting feather in a different spot and didn’t worry too much about keeping each row of feathers perfectly spaced, I like the organic look of the unevenness.
Trim the excess string.
Now that you have your wall hanging made it’s time to add your tags. There’s really no right or wrong way to do this, you can add a new tag each day or add them all at once. Use mini clothes pins to clip each tag to the string or feathers.
I’m so excited to keep this tradition of gratitude cards alive this year.
Leave a Reply