Thanksgiving Paper Craft - Indian Corn for Fall

In a festive fall mood the other day, the kids and I did some paper crafting:

 Indian corn! We used orange, brown and burgundy heavy tissue papers:

The kids glued the "corn kernel" papers onto brown cardboard using pencil ends, topped each with shredded and wrinkled tassels and completed the project with a ribbon bow.

Dessert Time!

Here's a peek at some of the desserts we've been treating ourselves to recently.
Deep-Fried Banana:

My wonderful husband surprised us with these fruity concoctions one night. Individual servings of deep-fried banana sprinkled with Ghiradelli chocolate chips and a dusting of powdered sugar. (Keep the batter light in order to cook quickly and not turn the banana to mush.)

I decorated this Angry Bird birthday cake for my son's family birthday dinner:

A simple 2-layer round cake. Marshmallows for his top feathers. Two pieces of chocolate for his tail feathers. Slices of marshmallows for his white eyes. Orange gel beak. All outlined with chocolate piped from a baggie with the corner cut out.

And with fall comes the classic – Apple Pie:

Love to use Granny Smith apples to give my apple pie some attitude. Serve with drizzled carmel and a dollop of whipped cream. Mmmmmmmmmm!

Fall Decorating with Gourds

Pumpkins and gourds – are they fall decorating staples at your house? We picked up a mixed bag of interesting gourds the other day and turned a few into this coffee table centerpiece trio:

I can't handle the ones super warty ones, but some of the shapes they come in are pretty cool. I like the one on the far left above. I'm using vases and a footed plate from my pewter collection that normally sits atop my kitchen cabinets.

How are you decorating with little pumpkins and mini gourds this year? See lots of fall ideas at this linkup.

Fall Scripture Cards - FREE Printable!

I have been so lax in my blogging I thought I'd make a little treat for you all to celebrate FALL!! A new season always brings a freshness to our lives and homes, and with it a little excitement ... although I must admit I'm totally a summer girl [yes, I know, I married a "Winters!" How did that happen?!]

Anyhoo, I put together a little page of themed tags with fall/harvest/thanksgiving Bible verses as a free printable!

(Click to Download the "Fall Scripture Cards" PDF)

Grace and peace be yours in abundance.

I Peter 1:2

He provides ... and fills your hearts with joy.

Acts 14:17

To every thing there is a season.

Ecclesiastes 3:1

Let the whole earth be filled with His glory.

Psalm 72:19

In everything give thanks.

1 Thessalonians 5:18

The works of the LORD are great.

Psalm 111:2

Tie them as tags around a gift. Paste them to the front of a handmade greeting card. Tuck them into your bathroom mirror. Glue them onto magnets. Laminate them as bookmarks. Print two sets and play Concentration with your kids. :-)

I hope you find a use for them! Enjoy!!!

Thankful for God's Grace

Happy Thanksgiving!!!

 Amazing Grace - how sweet the sound!! 2 color choices for a new painting of mine.

In honor of Black Friday and Cyber Monday and all that jazz, I'm offer a 20% off coupon good on any order from my Etsy shop. Enter "SAVE20" to get the discount - good through Monday!

Have a wonderful Thanksgiving weekend with family and loved ones!!

Simple Pumpkin Fall Centerpiece

Our favorite blue green pumpkin from our farmer's market outing takes center stage in a very simple tablescape for fall:

Our wood and metal platter from Blessings Unlimited is usually on a stand in a decorative grouping above our fireplace. But the pressed tin has a great cool tone to go with the cool sage of this pumpkin and the rich purple of a skinny eggplant. Altogether it makes a simple, yet stylish centerpiece as we decorate for fall.

Anyone know what our sage pumpkin is really called?

Fall Decorating with Squash, Pumpkins and Fresh Produce

Fresh fall market produce!! So colorful and REAL!! A must for fall decorating. We fell in love with this sage green pumpkin  – or is it a squash? – at the market and had to get it just for the fabulous unusual color!

The kids couldn't pass up the fun displays so they got to pick out their own harvest treasures to bring home. This wooden tray caddy piece from Blessings Unlimited was perfect to display the autumn produce on our coffee table:

Fine wood shavings complete the natural look:

May God richly bless YOU with abundance this fall!

Kids Craft - Marble Art Leaves Tutorial

Today I have a kid's craft idea for you. We've been making Marble Art leaves for several weeks now.  The kids love them, so it's been a fun to do with just us and with play groups.

Supplies:

paper / leaf coloring pages
scissors
4+ marbles
foil muffin pan
covered foil cake pan(s)
washable paints

Print out some leaf coloring pages and have the kids cut out their own leaf shape. Sometimes I cut random leaf shapes freehand ahead of time for them, especially with preschoolers. 

While they're cutting, you can ready the paints. In a foil muffin pan mix your colors. I usually do yellow, orange, red and brown. I took these pics after our paints had dried, but you'll get the idea. Be sure you're using washable paints! [brown is made by mixing all 3 primary colors: red, yellow, blue.] Drop a marble in each muffin cup and roll it around until it's full of paint:

Put craft aprons on the kids and let them at it!  Put the child's paper leaf in the bottom of the cake pan. They can pick up one colored marble at a time and drop it right on the leaf:

Cover the pan and shake it from side to side:

 Take off the cover and put in a marble of a different color. Repeat until they like how their leaf looks!

Fall Gratitude with Flowers & Leaves

We took a beautiful "leaf peeping" drive this weekend. My daughter is a collector ... so we collected pocketfuls of leaves, acorns and pine cones. Since she and Daddy had just brought home gorgeous fall tulips Saturday, we decided to dress them up with some leaves:

A Making Memories "gratitude" tag was just the thing for heading into the Thanksgiving season.

A band of red maple leaves is held on to the vase neck with a simple white satin ribbon.

Harvest Blessings & Giveaway Winner!

Enjoying the beauty of God's bounty this fall season ... how about you?

"Harvest Blessings"

Congrats to the winner of my new iPhone Scripture Signs app Giveaway: "Christian" who wrote...
I'd love to put one of your prints as my background, please put my name in the hat!
Thanks all who entered!

Black Friday Giveaway!!

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!!!

I'm so happy, I'm starting my "Black Friday" Giveaway a day early!!
Woo Hoo! Another giveaway!!!!! You were all so sweet in your response to my iron wall icthus design and giveaway a while back ...

... I just HAD :-) to share with you that DaySpring now offers a wood wall carving with my same Ichthus design:
It measures 20" x 14," weighs 6 pounds and is carved from mango wood! It's a solid, unique piece and ... one blessed blog reader is going to win one!!!!!! (It retails for $49.99 at DaySpring.com)

Oh, let's throw in a book, too! Another winner will receive a copy of my own book - Inspirational Home: simple ideas for uplifting decor and craft.It is loaded with beautiful full color photos of the kinds of ideas you see me do here. AND there are complete instructions. It's a craft book and a pretty coffee table book - prepare to be inspired! Think "Christmas gifts!!" :-) Also, I'm doing a buy one get one free on my etsy site for a limited time!

THE GIVEAWAY: TWO PRIZES, TWO WINNERS!
You can enter a bunch of ways:
1. For one entry, simply comment below and promise you're going to tell someone about my blog. :-)
2. For TWO additional entries, blog, twitter or Facebook about this post and link to it. You must leave another comment telling me you did so. If you don't have any of the above, you can email a plug for me to your entire address book, or at least a bunch of people, and cc me on it (jeanne @ jeannewinters . com but no spaces).
3. Grab either my Inspiring Ideas or Simply Inspiring button over on the right and post it on your blog or FB for another entry. Post both for TWO extra entries and don't forget to come back and let me know in a separate comment!

Contest is open until midnight MT, Dec. 3rd. Winners must have a US address I can ship to. Leave your email or a way to contact you if you win! I'll announce winners shortly thereafter.

Serving & Decorating

I mentioned my goodies from DaySpring a couple posts ago ... and today I'd like to show you one of the new treats – this rustic metal tray:
The cross design is actually carved right into the tray, giving it a cool, authentic finish:
I think it works with so many different styles. I set it on my coffee table with pine cones and leaves last week:
and now I'm seeing it with Christmas greens and candles. Of course, it's functional, too, so you can use it as a real tray ... but, hey, then you'd be covering up my design ..... :-)

Stay tuned ... hopefully tomorrow I'll have the Giveaway details!!!!!

(Update: Click to view or purchase
Rustic Metal Collection - Cross Serving Tray)

Thanksgiving Idea, A Giveaway and Come See Me at...

Wow - It's almost Thanksgiving already! Time to prepare for a lovely AND meaningful dinner with friends and family. I put together some paper napkin rings: I printed out words and design in 2 different widths and assorted patterns:
Write a simple "We thank God for you:"
Or "I am thankful for __________" to encourage everyone to think of something they want to thank God for, and then go around the table and share before digging in to the feast:Or a classic "Give Thanks:"
You can add the names of your guests and turn these into place cards, too. I added a short stalk of wheat to each and I'm ready to go!

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I've been honored with the chance to speak at MOPS (Mothers of Preschoolers) this week! I'm so excited! I'll be at Water of Life church in Fontana, California this Thursday and Friday mornings. (Nov. 19th & 20th) Call them for details and join us! Here's the blog of the lovely lady who invited me - Cara's church is the one with the incredible "Cardboard Testimonies" video you see there.

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Don't forget to scroll down to my previous post - one more day to enter to win this amazing book - Aim High: You'll want to read it, then LOAN it out, then buy more copies for gifts, then read it again yourself, then think of another person who'd love it, then loan your copy out again, then read it again, then read it to your daughter, then bring it to your local school, then tell a niece about it, then tell your friend about it ...
:-)

Fake Tree Goes Fall!

My two little leaf collectors want a project a day for their growing collection. So, we decided to give our artificial ficus tree a "Fall" look!
Once again, we pulled out our hole punch and glitter glue:Decorated some of the leaves with the kids' monograms, crosses, glitter dots, paint ... and left some plain:Then we punched holes, threaded gold string and decorated the ficus as if it were changing colors with the season:
Kind of brightens up that corner a bit!

As an update to my little chestnut bowl post ... my kids have taken a liking to coloring the tops of them!! Every time they have the markers out, a few more get "dressed up!"