Chalkboard Thankful Tree with waxed leaves

How to wax leaves and display them on a thankful tree.

Don’t you just love this time of year? A chance to slow down and really feel the gratitude for all that you have been blessed with. A simple chalkboard thankful tree with waxed leaves is such a fun way to see all the many things you are thankful for in one spot. It’s also a fun activity to do with kids. Here’s the simple yet big way to display all your many “thankfuls”.

I bought a big 8ft x 4ft MDF board at the hardware store and painted both sides with chalkboard paint. We have loved this board! We leave it up and change it for holidays and birthdays. It’s huge! Right now it’s our thankful tree.
Using the wide side of a piece of chalk, I drew a big tree, then we added the leaves. Real leaves dipped in wax.

Have you ever tried waxing leaves before? It’s so neat! By dipping colorful Fall leaves into hot wax, the leaves will stay soft and will not continue to change or dry out. I first learned about waxing leaves from Sarah of Clover Lane (love her!). She has a great tutorial. Basically you just melt the blocks of wax in a disposable tin pan over low heat on your burner. The wax melts quickly and the clear wax will coat both sides of each leaf you dip.

If you plan to wax leaves with small children, be so so careful with the hot wax. You will also want to cover surfaces with newspaper to avoid drips of wax getting onto anything and everything.

Here’s the fun part. BEFORE you dip the leaves into the wax, you can write on the leaves all the many things you’re thankful for. We used a white paint pen, but you could also use black, or a metallic gold or silver would be neat too.

Once all your leaves are ready with words, you can dip them into the hot wax. Just be sure to have a prepared place for them to cool and set.

Once dry, we added them to our thankful tree using clear packaging tape. With the wax on them, it’s tricky to get them to stick, but the clear packaging tape worked great.

We also made some for our Thanksgiving place settings. I love how they turned out, don’t you just love the colors of Autumn?

We also dipped all of these name place leaves in the hot wax as well. I’m excited to set the table with these pretty leaves for our Thanksgiving dinner.