Home blessings

I'm taking this week to reflect on all the blessings that led up to our wonderful family Thanksgiving, and one of them is that I have a home I love and enjoy decorating for the holidays.  When my children were little we had an exuberant abundance of window clings and school art projects hanging everywhere, and I loved how cheerful it made my home look.  Now we just have grownups (and Willow, who thinks she's human) rattling around and I miss the wonderful, slightly mis-matched but heartfelt homemade decor of former days. Therefore, it was time to do a few arts and crafts projects myself!  

Project one:  Mantel decorated with vintage blue mason jars (recycled from my son's rehearsal dinner three years ago), filled with autumn leaves, and a literary decoration that turned out pretty swell, if I do say so myself!  I simply chose vintage books of varying heights from my library, tied them together with an autumn colored ribbon and stamped an appropriate message on the end papers.  

If I could do it over again, I'd choose black ink over brown to make the letters stand out a little more, but I thought brown was more "fall."  It's a little light, but I was really pleased with the way it turned out.

I am so thankful indeed!

Project two:  change the door decoration in my cross stitch picture.  I cross stitched this little house twenty-two years ago as a fun way for my husband to let our three sons know the birth of our fourth child.  He had a "it's a boy" and a "it's a girl" decoration to hang, and according to my husband the boys were jumping up and down to see which one got hung on the door!  I have all sorts of little door hangers to celebrate holidays and occasions and love changing them out.  

Project three:  hang my favorite framed Thanksgiving piece in the hallway.

Project four:  create a banner garland for my latest furniture project (more on that tomorrow!).  I saw a similar banner online and decided I could make it.  The instructions promised it was a ten minute project, but it took me a little longer than that. So that the garland had the vintage feel I love, I used pages from an old copy of the Junior Classics set I have.  Can you guess which book I used?  The poetry book, of course! And, since I tend to be slightly OCD (my family is laughing at the "slightly" description) I hunted for the perfect poems for the banner, using fall poems to convey just the right tone.  The fact that no one could really see the poems or read them in their entirety is beside the point. I also included my grandmother's favorite poem, Thanatopsis, in her honor.  

While it did take longer than the promised ten minutes, it was a fairly simple process once I was satisfied with the poetry selections.  I cut a template, traced the pattern and cut out the pendants, then affixed the chipboard letters to spell out the message.  I used small slivers of double sided tape to secure the letters, and then punched small holes at the top to thread the twine through.  I was quite happy with the result!

And then, on Thanksgiving Day, one final house blessing arrived...a picture from my niece which I proudly hung on my kitchen door.  My final "home blessing"...a child's art work graced my walls again!

Bless this house, O Lord we pray, 
Make it safe by night and day ... 

Bless these walls so firm and stout, 
Keeping want and trouble out ...

Bless the roof and chimneys tall, 
Let thy peace lie overall ... 

Bless this door that it may prove, 
Ever open, 
To joy and love ... 

Bless these windows shining bright, 
Letting in God's Heavenly light, 
Bless the hearth, the painting there, 
With smoke ascending like a prayer! 

Bless the folk who dwell within, 
Keep them pure and free from sin ... 

Bless us all that we may be, 
Fit O Lord to dwell with thee ... 

Bless us all that one day we may dwell, 
O Lord! With Thee!