This season leading up to Thanksgiving is one of my favorites. If there is anything I’d like to be, it is thankful, and so I love the idea of expressing our gratitude both in spoken and written word.
I have created a set of cards to help encourage this attitude of thankfulness.
You could put one at each place setting at the the Thanksgiving table, have your family and friends fill them out and share with each other. My sister does this each night leading up to Thanksgiving with her family and then saves the cards to read the following year.
Another great way to use the cards is to turn them into tags
and hang them on a thankful tree.
The boys and I tromped out into the woods, cut down a few branches, put them into a heavy urn and filled the bottom with stones to hold the branches in place.
Every day, we each write one thing we are thankful for. And the rule is that nothing can be duplicated. This is our first year doing a thankful tree and I’m looking forward to seeing what the boy’s come up with. I hope it is a great way to instill in them the importance of having a thankful heart. I know it will be good practice for me and Ryan, too.
{at least we’ve instilled some self-esteem in this silly child}.
If you would like to do a thankful tree in your home, or if you’d like to use these cards at your dinner table, please download the pdf below.
There are ten subtle fall colors and each card is 2 x 3.5.
To create the tags, I cut out the card, punched a hole, added hole reinforcement stickers, and cut the edges at an angle.
I hope you find great ways to use these cards.
Happy Thanksgiving!
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Wow. I’m glad I found this post before Thanksgiving. This is a great way to celebrate, and will also provide me with some FHE activities leading up to Thanksgiving. Now I just need to find some great new recipes to go with the new decor.
Oh no! I pinned these and was just getting ready to print them out when I discovered the link no longer exists. Will you be posting these again this season?
thank you for sharing..i just fpund your blog and i love it… :)
I have never been to a blog where I immediately fell in love, like I walked in the front door to my own home. Oh my, yours is a very special blog. I just finished reading your post about your little boy calling you “mom” and I could relate perfectly. And then on this post, I see your brown dishes. I have those same ones, Spode Delamere. Love, love. Wishing I had found you earlier last week for the Thankful Tree tags. I’ll be doing it next year for sure. I can’t wait see what else I discover here. Thanks for having me! – Carly
We love your thankfulness cards and recently used them on our camping trip in a ‘Give Thanks’ craft. I would like to send you a picture of how we used them but I’m not sure how to attach it here. But, we loved the results so much that it is now hanging on our wall at home. Thank You!!
i am thankful for great printables on the internet. i used your tags….check them out here.
http://www.casaonefiveone.com/2011/11/bring-neighborly.html
thanks and happy thanksgiving to you and your adorable family!
Love, love love this idea. I think I might do this myself during the Holiday Season, filling a card out every day and hanging it on the tree. By Christmas Day I’ll have an entire month’s worth of gratitude!
I just wanted to say “thank you” and let you know how much my family (three boys) and I have enjoyed this gratitude tree idea. It is wonderful to see just what kids are “thankful” for! Your printable tags are adorable :-)
I just have to say a quick thank you for your Thankful Tree idea. We adopted a little 6 year old boy from Ethiopia a few months ago. When his class was assigned a project to work on at home {and bring back to school} showing photos, etc of Family Thanksgiving Traditions, I thought “oh NO! we don’t have any yet!”
So, we crafted your tree and he attached photos I took while they made it. It was the perfect 1st tradition.
Here’s my blog about it {of course I credited you for the idea}
http://hugsandpunches.blogspot.com/2011/11/thankful-tree-tutorial.html
Thanks again, Emily.
Teresa Anderson
Thanks again for making these! We have been making “thankful” notes each night and stringing them across our mantel. I just wrote about it on my blog.
Thank you for sharing this project. My littlest one and I gathered our branches and set them up…rocks and all. We just printed the tags andwill be ready to fill out soon. :) We are grateful. Thank you
I am thankful for you and your creativity … I’m not sure I could get through the day anymore without looking at your blog! So thankful I stumbled upon your work.
I was wondering what weight of paper you use when you print these thankful notes…and where would I buy it. At and office suppy place? or someplace like Michaels?
Love your Blog!!
Great! Thank you so much! I’m going to use it for my ESL Communication class. :)
You are always so generous Emily! Thank you!
I’ve got our thankful tree ready for tomorrow and a beautiful banner that says GRATEFUL hanging across the bottom of the mirror above our mantel, and your chair silhouette print on said mantel {Oh, and a linen wreath}. There is a lot of Jones Design around our house and I love it. HAPPY THANKSGIVING!
Oh, you and I share a similar heart! Thank you for doing this in your home and for posting this on your site. Gratitude/thankfulness is especially important these days. To thank someone is to hold them responsible; and Who better to thank than our Heavenly Father Who gives us all things to richly enjoy! We have a Good News Club and last week we started a poster that is with a similar idea. And we learned a new song from Ps 92:1 “It is good to praise the Lord and make music to Your name, O Most High, to proclaim Your love in the morning and Your faithfulness at night”
Keep up the good work Emily! I’m thanking God for you!
Love the thankful tree! Had actually already done one with scrap pieces of paper but these tags are so cute! Maybe we’ll use them at the dinner table though… Do you mind telling me where you got those plates? I do love them. Thanks!
I watch my neices,who are 3 years and 10 months, while their parents work . I was so inspired by your tree idea that Millie (the 3 year old) and I trekked outside to gather branches. For the past several days adding a thankful thought to our tree has been the first thing that we do when Momma drops the girls off. Momma and Daddy have been able to add their thankful thoughts to the tree as well and it is filling up quickly. It is a wonderful way to teach gratitude and it has been delightful to decide what we want to be grateful for each day. Thank you for sharing your wonderful idea!
Thanks Emily! Your timing is perfect..my kids and I needed this to help us get through a difficult time. We can’t wait to get our branches and get the tags on our thankful tree!
Thank you for making me look like a really good mom who is organized & crafty. My girlfriends are in awe of me because of you but I don’t tell them I stole the “Thankful Tree” & tags from you. :) Appreciate the free download, I was going to have the kids cut out leaves and write it down, but this was so quick & pretty. Thanks for your talent. Have a good day.
Can you tell me how you made your gratitude banner? Thanks!
It was the project we did for the November JDC | Monthly. We’d love for you to join! You can learn more right here: https://jonesdesigncompany.com/jones-design-company-monthly-printables/
Thank you! You have been inspiring me for awhile now! I like how you moved the TV! Ha! Is it weird when strangers know how you have your house decorated? It looks great! Blessings, Tonia
I am thankful for this great download from Emily! : )
Love it! I just got them all printed, cut out and ready for our Family Home Evening activity tonight. We’ll do a new card each Monday night to add to it. I think I’ll string them up above the fireplace. Thanks!
These are fantastic! Thanks for the free download! Once again, you ROCK!!!
I went outside this afternoon and grabbed some branches to make a Thankful Tree for my family! Had the cards printed, cut and punched in no time! Thank you for beautiful print outs and a great idea! God bless!
Gorgeous cards and a beautiful idea to have a thankful tree.
Love the colours and the whole look.
Lou
I am Thankful for you. Your thoughts and talents bring beauty to this world. We don’t celebrate Thankgiving here in Australia but thankfulness is something our family tries to embrace everyday. Thank you for this thoughtful and lovely gift :)
Thank you the tree is a great idea.
We are thankful for you.
I LOVE this tree. Doing it immediately! Such a sweet idea, We can all be a little more thankful.
gorgeous! you are on fire with these great creative ideas and beautifully designed cards.
thanks for offering them free. i appreciate your work and generous heart!
stacie
I just love these. I can’t wait to make me a little tree too!! Also, thank you for the JDC monthly. I am loving it. You are so creative, and thank you for sharing your talent. Your living room is beautiful!!
I let out a couple of chuckles and am THANKFUL for the laugh! Great idea!
I LOVE this and am absolutely going to use the idea immediately. Thank you for always sharing so generously. I blogged about your beautiful ideas {and heart} today. You inpsire me so often and I am THANKFUL for you.
Blessings,
KM
Thank you so much for sharing your talents with blogland!
I love the sheet music place mat…is it really just sheet music or a place mat you purchased? Can’t wait to hear about moving the TV into the master!
Thanks,
Lucinda
I am thankful for gifted designers who are generous enough to give us a free download so that we can make our own Thankfulness trees!
Thank you!
you are endlessly inspiring and I am thankful for “meeting you”!
how cute! i also LOVE your fall living room! beautiful. but what happened to your tv???
how observant! We have rearranged a few rooms and now our master bedroom is the media/game room with the big tv and our master bedroom is now in the old guest room. We still need to cover that niche in the fireplace …
Thanks so much for these! My boys and I had our first Thankfulness Tree last year (after one fell in love with a large stick and couldn’t bear to leave it outside!). We used plain ol’ construction paper leaves in fall colors to write our blessings, so today I am grateful to find something much more fun! Thanks for the great tags. I found that after Thanksgiving I didn’t want to throw the leaves that listed our blessings away, so I bunched them together on a small string and hung the cluster on our Christmas tree. I think it’ll be fun to have lots of clumps of these blessings cards hanging on our tree in the future. :)
Thank you Emily!
My mom had us do a similar activity growing up. She had a decorated coffee tin with a slot in the top — we would put in notes with messages of things we were thankful for during the month of November, then would read them during Thanksgiving dinner. It is a memory I still cherish today, 25+ years later!
What a beautiful way to display these messages and a wonderful tradition to share with your children, thank you for sharing!
Psalm 100:4-5
4 Enter his gates with thanksgiving
and his courts with praise;
give thanks to him and praise his name.
5 For the LORD is good and his love endures forever;
his faithfulness continues through all generations.
Thank you Emily!
I was going to start a “Thankful Jar” and these tags will be perfect to use. Thanks so much!!!
How very pretty…THANK YOU!
thank you soooo much for this, Emily! Will do! Also, I am pinning your place setting – that would be the dream one for me! Is that your place setting? Do you know the name of that? I am a big collector of all brown/white plates!!!
You are such a real, dear woman!
What a great download, thanks! Love the tree!!! Oh, and the legos nearly killed me. So sweet. -Teresa
thanks for these!! i think i will do a tree next year and use these (thanksgiving here in Canada has passed). they are too cute and such a great idea. thank you so much!!
Thanks for much for sharing! I am working on getting my tree together today! Can’t wait to use these cards to teach my boys more about how to be thankful every day! I printed out the cards, however, they are very small…only a 1 x 2. Did I do something wrong when downloading or printing? Thanks again!
Just make sure you open the pdf using Adobe Reader.
Thank you for your generosity in sharing your talents! I am going to do this with my family tonight for Family Night!
Thank you for the tags! I am going to use them. What a great idea. Anyway, thank you for making them and giving them away, that was a sweet blessing! God bless you!
Love this! I’m thankful for your generosity! BTW–how’s about a tutorial for that pretty fall wreath on your mantel? :)
The wreath on the mantle came from the Martha Stewart line at KMart about 10 years ago. I love putting it out each fall!
I’m thankful for your talent and that you are so generous sharing with all your fans!! =) Thank you so much for these. My daughter and I cut branches this past weekend just for this reason and I was going to make tags today…now I don’t have to! Have a great week and thank again!!!
Hi Emily,
Love your ideas! Your plates are beautiful, what pattern are they? Thanks!
The plates are Spode Delamere. My m-i-l gave them to me a few years ago for christmas and I adore them.
Thank you so much for this sweet gift! My sweet boy and I are gonna go cut some branches down in our woods and have a Thankful tree.
I like to set up a tree of thanks during this time. I started this practice when I was teaching in a psychiatric facility–it is easy to forget about gratefulness at times and there is nothing like these pretty cards to remind me.
Erika
It’s a Wrap Link Party at Artful Rising
Thank you, thank you!
Thank you! I LOVE these!
Thanks, Emily!
Lovely, sentimental idea for the season of thanks. : )
I bought a Thanksgiving calendar 5 years ago at Pottery Barn, and it is so cute to see what my kids come up with. I have just been using plain card stock these past 5 Thanksgivings, but these cards would coordinate perfectly. I wish there was somewhere in my house I could do a Thanksgiving tree, but for now, my Thanksgiving calendar works well. Thank you so much for inspiring a little more gratitude in the world.
Thanks Emily! I am hosting Thanksgiving this year for 30 at my house, and can think of LOTS of ways I can use these beautiful cards you created. I love them, and they will go perfectly with the tablescape I am planning on putting together. I am thankful for YOU and all your inspiration and talent. Thanks for sharing with the rest of the world!
Love it! Such a great idea!
we are doing this! thank you so much!! and oh yes i love your table setting…those plates are lovely.
This is too funny! I just posted about a thankful tree today too! I think I like yours even better, though. LOVE your table setting!
We have a thankful tree too! And it looks just like yours! Urn and everything! I feel so smart:) however I was using plain tags! Thanks for sharing yours!
I can’t believe I am just finding your lovely blog!! I have been browsing through the archives and I am now a subscriber. The thankful tree is such a great idea and I love your living room.
Hugs,
Sherry
Wonderful! I’d been trying to think of way to incorporate writing daily “thankful for” notes, but hadn’t gotten around to creating something. These are perfect!
Love these! I want to do a thankful tree with my girls now!
what a fabulous idea to help instill the importance of thankfulness into your family. also, it’s just really cute. thanks for sharing!
Thank you so much for sharing your talent to those of use who may not have any!! I am thankful for all your generousity!! Have a great day!!
These are beautiful. And I’m thankful for your generous share !!! Thank you.
I am thankful for YOU! What a fabulous idea. Love the tree in the living area and your brown transferware. Beautiful!
kelly
p.s. hope you got my email yesterday…..
this is on my to-do list! thanks for the download:))))