For the season of Thanks and Giving

Our tree full of leaves and with  a yellow ribbon in honor of soldiers sailors and airmen still deployed.

This tree represents one of the most wonderful memories to be etched into my heart.

In order to bring a sense of gratitude to the Holidays I wanted to create something unique.  Since I had recently seen a "spooky tree" made from paper bags on the FamilyFun.com site for Halloween it popped into my mind that it might make a good gratitude tree. I decided to try it on a larger scale suing several large shopping bags.

This is our tree before the leaves...

Unfortunately a blog accident has left me with now pictures of the prcess so I'll try to describe as best I can how I made this tree. First I cut down one side of a large paper grocery bag then cut around the bottom to create a sigle flat piece. I tore this in two so that I had two long pieces to work with. For this tree I used two bags which gave me four longer pieces.(woohoo I found some iphone pics)

Next I taped the pieces overlapping to cover a sauce jar, I think Ragu pizza sauce but I could be mistaken. LOL Then, using a spray bottle of water I lightly misted the strips and twisted them around until I felt it looked right. It was a make it up as you go along kind project after all.
Here's how it started out:

 Then, using a spray bottle of water I lightly misted the strips and twisted them around until I felt it looked right. It was a make it up as you go along kind project after all.

 Next I decided the center needed some support so I grabbed a bit of everything in the kitchen drawer. I think what worked best was bamboo kitchen skewers for the center and straws for the limbs. You can't tell but they are inside there...and I just taped it all together the best I could with double sided tape inside some sections.

 After the trunk started to dry it became a bit more stable. The rest of the tree was simply created by dividing and twisting the four strips into two or three smaller sections over and over, allowing the tree to "branch out" and take shape.

The leaves were cut using my Cricut Expresssion, but I am not sure of the cartridge. Any simple leaf shape will do. I used several colors and sizes just for fun.

This last part is my favorite. :)

At first I was thinking the project turned out pretty but not as effective as hoped. I sat down with the girls and explained the idea of writing on the leaves and soon they thought of a few things and put a few leaves on. Well I wasn't overwhelmed with the initial response frankly and had hoped for better.

But after Thanksgiving dinner was all done and everyone was puttering around the house doing various things. I spied G (my intense middle child) in the dining room writing. I was so surprised when she told me she was filling in the tree! Slowly and quietly my other two girls joined us as we had a more heartfelt discussion and filled nearly every speck of the tree up. This was a moment a Mother lives for! Best day ever!

*Note:This is a rewrite of my original post which got accidentally deleted. :( Sorry to say this isn't as good a tale as the original but I still wanted to share this with my readers.