30 Days of Thankfulness ~ Day 3

The color of the leaves surrounding my house is so amazing right now. I have been waiting on these trees for months. I've watched so many others in our neighborhood turn and then become bare all while these - with my favorite fire red and orange hues - took their merry time. Oh, has it been worth the wait! Every window I look out of I am greeted with a blaze of color and depending on the weather or the time of day it is mixed with golden sunshine, or early morning mist, or the wind and rain of a blustery storm. 

I'm so thankful that God chose to give us beauty at summer's end. Even though the end of summer means that things are either dying or going dormant for the winter, it doesn't look dismal to me. I think autumn leaves in their rainbow of colors are just one of the many things we can look at that reflect God's promise of hope and new life. It's like He whispers, "Pretty beautiful isn't it?? Wait till next year - that tree will have even more color to it after another year of growth. Even this bare time is part of that growth...just wait, be patient." It's that hope that can take us through the stark emptiness of winter. The time when nothing feels so great, nothing looks so wonderful and we wonder what the purpose is. Then spring awakens with a yawn and bursts into blossom, the trees and flowers so refreshed from their long winters' nap. Then we remember - but oh how easily we forget each fall. 

I've been itching to get these beautiful colors captured inside my house. The boys and I have been actively doing little painting projects for our school learning and art pieces have been piling up. I wasn't sure what I'd do with all these colorful projects, but then I decided to repurpose some of them. 

First there was the day we made sun catchers shaped and colored to look like autumn leaves. I loved this project! I'm going to have a hard time taking these down from our window at Christmas to make room for snowflakes. They will definitely be an annual project.

I'm not sure when it happened, but we made apple art as we've done almost every year. I think it happened and was such a fiasco with three boys that I never got the camera out to snap pictures of them covered in paint!

I decided rather than have this stack of apple art in my office until I finally tossed it, I would make leaf designs on the back and cut them out. Wasn't sure what I was going to get, but figured they'd be colorful at least.

I cleared our picture frame of the snowflakes it had housed since last Christmas (yes, they were up all year and through the blazing summer). Used my brown craft wrapping paper as a backdrop and got out the tape. This is where I had to calm the inner perfectionist and let things free form. I get all irritated if it seems like one side has more than another or too many are facing the same direction.

I did the same thing with our smaller red frame and then grabbed all our autumn and Thanksgiving books to add to the display in our family room. I'm quite pleased with how it turned out.

I decided to add some autumn flair to the mantel. I've had a banner of sorts there since Christmas last year and used it for birthdays and showers and all sorts of things, but this is the first time I went up and doubled the banner. I'm liking the layers!

It is hard to tell in the picture, but there is a beautiful display of colors outside that window right now. The banner just pops in front of it!

I added the rest of the little cut out leaves a few other places - on mirrors, bulletin boards in the kitchen and by the entry way. I may grab a few decorative pumpkins at the store later this week to jazz up the mantel a bit more, but over all, I'm pretty happy with my decorating for fall and the constant reminders to be thankful for the harvest He provides - everything we need, and the rest that is coming in winter.