Simple, Easy Thanksgiving Decor

First of all, thanks for all the positive feedback on the thanks glasses! I've even seen it pinned on Pinterest a few times, which is always exciting! So fun to be just be browsing and all of a sudden see something from YOUR house! ;) So I thank you...(kind of fitting for this post;)

As promised, I have some more easy, simple, VERY inexpensive Thanksgiving decorating ideas for you today. I have a few tall glass vases that are fun to fill for any season or holiday, but when I saw this on Pinterest one day, it was new to me, perfect colors for our dining room/kitchen area, and all I had to do was add a few extra items onto my grocery list that week...

(source: My Heart's Desire)

I did substitute yellow splitpeas for the popping corn, and lentils for the green splitpeas, but here's how mine turned out:

And it looks oh-so-cozy lit at night...

The layers are a little wonky, since my little 5 year old decorator decided it'd be fun to push the candles down as far as she could, making the layers sort of mix together!

Wrap some jute around it and BAM! You're done. All for the cost of some beans;) Can't beat that!

The next idea was a no-brainer when I saw it on Pinterest:

(source: Simply Vintagegirl Blog)

A Thankful Tree. Brilliant! And I had just filled a large glass vase with spray painted black sticks for Halloween, so I just got rid of those and put some new branches in!

I didn't get as cute with the paper though;) I just grabbed a few sheets of stock in different shades of creams and tans, and attached them with jute. We've all been writing down the things we're thankful for daily - it's become the theme of our dinners lately, and some of the things out of their mouths are pretty adorable:) Here's one of my favorites from my 3 year old:

Clarisse. Yep, the one and only from Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer. Last Christmas, all 3 of our kids were flat out obsessed with that movie, and we managed to buy every single character in a stuffed form at our local grocery store. For some reason, they sold them in the Christmas aisle, and we had to grab the main characters right away, but after Christmas was over, they went on sale, and we picked up the rest for a song. Yukon Cornelius, Abominable Snowman, Sam the Snowman...every last one. And being the daughter of yours truly, she has Christmas in her heart 12 months out of the year. She sleeps with all of them every night, and Clarisse goes all kinds of places with us. I think Clarisse is her Numero Uno. So she said she was thankful for her, and that she is:) I tie new ones up each day, so I'm really looking forward to seeing it on Thanksgiving, filled with itty bitty pieces of paper of all the things we're thankful for. I love this idea. Wouldn't it be great to display on an entry table if you were hosting Thanksgiving? The guests could each fill one out and hang on the tree. Maybe to be read after all the bellies are full and everyone's enjoying a second (or third;) slice of pumpkin pie?

I wanted to fill the vase with something, so I grabbed a few of these bags at the Dollar Store:

I knew they were just a tab bit too orange and bright, but I had a few cans of spray paint in different shades of tan, cream, gold, brown, etc., so I sprayed a couple each color.

Again, tied some jute around (what would I do without that stuff these days?!) the vase and done.

So there are a couple more ideas for you, those that aren't quite ready to bust out the green and red just yet. Trust me, I cannot WAIT, but there's something so warm and wonderful about Thanksgiving, that I feel the need to give this lovely time of year it's due. I have more to be thankful for than I could ever have imagined, and today, I'm thankful for that.

P.S. I've linked this up at Inspired Honey Bee!