Artisan Wednesday Wow ~ Thanksgiving Harvest of Blessings

 

Welcome back! The projects we have to share with you today appeared on the Stampin’ Up! Facebook page last Friday! I’m excited to be able to share it with you here today! I’ll give a little warning that this post is long and has lots of photos.  I always love to see a lot of photos so I tend to share a lot of photos.  I hope you enjoy them!

 

Although I’m excited to share my project and love how it turned out, it’s a bit tough to write for exactly the same reason that I love the project so much.  While this project reminds me of what my family and I are thankful for, it’s also a reminder of what and who we miss so much … my Dad and all of the holidays, special days and plain old regular days that we had with him.  He passed away 4 yrs ago and I love how this project helped to let me still feel like he is a part of the holidays with us.   I wrote on my Facebook after Thanksgiving while we were departing from Family to head back home, that it was a good time to be reminded of a quote by Dr. Seuss, ‘don’t cry because it’s over, smile because it happened’… I miss my Dad, but I’m truly grateful for each day that we got to spend with him and when I think of those days, I smile because they happened. I don’t know about you but a great project can almost always cheer me up so before this post becomes too sad I’ll cherish it for how special the project is and I’ll move onto sharing this ‘Harvest of Blessings’ ensemble.

 

In Canada, we’ve already celebrated Thankgiving this year.  My project this week was all about Thankgiving and Harvesting our Blessings.  In this project, you’ll see how my garland gave my family (including my Mom, all of my brothers, sisters-in-law, nieces and nephews) all a chance to record and share what they are thankful for.

 

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This ensemble started with the burlap placemat & candle with the garland and grew from there.  While parts of it were simple and quick to put together other parts although easy, were tedious.  It really was a labour of love.  In the Holiday Catalogue, Stampin’ Up! has a sample with a string of circles sewn together and wrapped around a candle.  I incorporated that idea into my Harvest of Blessings ensemble and created this garland of circles out of Sweater Weather DSP to represent our family tree.  Each size of circle represents a generation in the family. The largest circles represent my Mom and Dad and from there, each smaller size represents a new generation in the family.   There is a family garland connecting the pennants on the banner and there is a matching family garland wrapped around the candle.  The candle is to represent my Dad and the family garland is to represent that he is still embraced in our love.

 

Here’s a closer look at the garland.  I chose the word ‘love’ from the expressions thinlits because of the significance of the candle and garland.

 

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To create this burlap placemat that ties the ensemble together, I used the Harvest of Thanks digital stampbrush set as well as the Truly Grateful digital stampbrush set.  I mirror imaged them and printed them on an iron-on transfer and then ironed them onto the burlap.  The whole ensemble began with the idea of the placemat and just kept growing into a more significant & meaningful project that I hope to use at Thanksgiving in the years to come.

 

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The placemat held the candle and a paint tin.  In the paint tin were the chalkboard pieces from the Thankful Tablescape kit and extra pieces of Basic Black cardstock that were cut with a variety of framelits.  Each family member took a piece of cardstock from the tin and wrote what they are thankful for and then clipped their ‘blessings’ onto the circle that corresponds with their place on the family tree.  I LOVED watching and listening to all the nieces and nephews as they wrote their blessings down and read what each other wrote on their card.

 

Here is the card that my 6 yr old wrote on.  Some of you are well aware of how he prays for the people in the desert.. for them to have food and homes (more specifically, for them to ‘get a chicken’) and so it came as no surprise that he wrote that he is thankful for, ‘the people in the desert’.  As his mom, I thought this was rather sweet!

 

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Here is the garland before we clipped all of our ‘blessings’ onto it.

 

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You can see at the top of my post how it turned out with all of the pieces clipped to it… not everyone had written on theirs yet when I took the photo but you get the idea.  I need somewhere in my home so that I can keep it up as a reminder of my family and our blessings.  We don’t have a mantle so I’m not sure just where it will go but I’d like to find somewhere.  Here is another view of the cards all clipped up.

 

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I used more of the Thankful Tablescape Kit to create the pennants at each end of the garland.  I tied in both ‘thankful’ and ‘love’ from the Expressions Thinlits dies.

 

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While this ensemble truly was a labour of love, it was a fun and tangible way to truly harvest our blessings.  I hope you are inspired to create a family garland of blessings, it really was enjoyable to hear what each of the kids and adults counted in their blessings this year!

 

Now, let’s go see what Becky has to share today! I saw all the projects on Facebook last week and they are pretty fabulous so be sure to hop on through to see every one, don’t stop until you get back to Mercedes!

 

 

 

Supplies:

Paper: Sweater Weather DSP, Basic Black Cardstock

Stamps & Ink: Truly Grateful Stamp Set, Versamark, Early Espresso

Accessories: Crushed Curry Chevron Ribbon, Chocolate Chip Chevron Ribbon, Naturals Buttons, Burlap Ribbon, Thankful Tablescape Kit, White Emboss Powder, Signo Gel Pen, Chalk Marker, Stamping Sponges

Tools: Big Shot, Apothecary Art Framelits, Chalktalk Framelits, Expressions Thinlits, Simply Scored, Stampin’ Pierce Mat, 1/2″ Circle Punch, 3/4″ Circle Punch, 1″ Circle Punch, 1 1/4″ Circle Punch

My Digital Studio: Truly Grateful Stampbrush Set, Harvest of Thanks Stampbrush Set

Other: Sewing Machine, Burlap, Iron-on Transfers, Printer