Wildcrafting
As always here at Activekidsclub.com, we use Mother Nature as the décor for our Holidays. With autumn being such a rich season, beautiful leaves and branches everywhere you have plenty of opportunities to make your table look beautiful and rich for Thanksgiving. Your kids are your best helpers; you can start early to collect nature’s beauty together. I promise, you will not only have a great table with almost no cost, you and your kids will get some cool nature experiences together.
You need
A roll of paper
Different shapes and colors of Leaves
Branches
Different shapes of winter squash
Flower, straw or branches with leaves in season
Crayons
Good pair of walking shoes
Make a leaf table runner
Start with walking in your neighbourhood and collect different shapes of leaves. If they have beautiful colors you can press them for decorations for the table later.
Put the roll of paper and size the length of your runner for your table.
Position leaves vein side up under the paper.
Select the crayons you would like to use for rubbing and peel off the paper wrappers.
Turn a crayon on its side and gently rub over the top sheet of paper.
The leaf images will magically appear on the paper. Experiment with different colors and shapes.
Press leaves
After collecting your favorite leaves, press them for decorations on the table. If you live in a place where you have beautiful colors on Thanksgiving Day, you can just pick your leaves on the day. For the rest of us, it might be good to press some leaves to make sure you have them for our Thanksgiving table.
Layer leaves between sheets of paper and stack them between heavy books (phone books will do). After a week or so they should be ready to use for decorations on the table.
Branches
Look for different types of fallen branches. For our table we went around in our neighborhood, it was amazing what we found for our table.
On the day
Lay out your runner. Let you children help you to arrange your collected items. Winter squash, branches, different leaves, candles, fresh flowers (or branches with leaves) from your garden put in a pumpkin with water. Set the tables with cutlery, plates, and glasses.
Light the candles, Happy Thanksgiving !
