Kids Will Love Making these 5 Turkey Crafts

The thought of Thanksgiving likely makes grown-ups think of things like cooking, eating, traveling or hosting a Thanksgiving turkey dinner. Most of us don’t think of Thanksgiving as particularly ‘fun’. If you look at this holiday through a child’s eyes though, you’ll likely see things like pilgrims, Indians and turkeys. Why not add to your child’s delight by making these Thanksgiving crafts for kids?

Photo by: Joe M500

Tiny Toms/Pinecone Turkey

The Pinecone Turkey is probably the least expensive of Thanksgiving crafts. Hopefully you can find the pinecones outside and purchase the other five items.

• Yellow and red felt
• Tacky glue
• Googly eyes
• Brown pom-poms
• Pinecones
• Pipe cleaners

1. For each turkey, cut out a yellow beak and a red wattle from felt. Then glue the beak, wattle, and a pair of googly eyes onto a pom-pom to create the turkey’s head.
2. Glue the pom-pom head to the tip of a pinecone. Allow the glue to dry.
3. Wrap a pipe cleaner around the middle of the turkey’s cone body, starting from the top and twisting it together a few times on the underside. Separate the ends of the pipe cleaner (below the twists) and bend each tip into a 3-toed foot.
4. For the turkey’s tail, individually wrap 3 or 4 pipe cleaners around the back of the pinecone, starting from the underside and twisting them together a few times on the top of the pinecone to secure them. Then loop both ends of each pipe cleaner to shape tail feathers.

Craft Stick Turkey Greeter

If you are looking for easy craft ideas, you’ll like this one. When you’re done you can poke the Craft Stick Turkey Greeter into an upside-down paper cup or hang it on the edge of a flower pot outside your Los Angeles home.

• 10 jumbo craft sticks
• 2 medium wiggle eyes
• Miniature craft stick
• Small scrap of paper
• Sharpie marker
• Felt (white, black, goldenrod, and red)
• Acrylic paint (brown, orange, yellow, and red)
• Scissors
• Hot glue or white craft glue

1. Paint the jumbo craft sticks: four brown, two yellow, two red and one orange. Leave one unpainted.
2. Cut one-half an egg shape (body) from the goldenrod felt, approximately 2 1/2 x 3 inches.
3. Cut a small elongated triangle from the goldenrod felt for the beak.
4. From red felt, cut an elongated heart shape, about one-inch long.
5. From black felt, cut a simple top hat and a small rectangle for the buckle.
6. From the white felt, cut a small rectangle for the buckle a little bit larger than the black one.
7. Lay the plain jumbo craft stick on the table. This will be your base stick.
8. Starting from the right, glue craft sticks into a fan shape, stacking one on top of the other as you go. Our pattern goes brown, yellow, red, brown, yellow, red, orange, brown.
9. You should have one brown craft stick left over. This is your turkey’s body. Glue it straight up and down onto the middle of the fan shape.
10. Glue goldenrod body in place. Next, glue the gobbler (red heart) just above the top of the body.
11. Glue the beak in place just above the gobbler.
12. Glue wiggle eyes above the beak.
13. Glue hat onto top of head, then glue white rectangle on hat and black rectangle onto the white one, creating the buckle.
14. Write “Happy Thanksgiving” on a small piece of paper or construction paper. Glue to miniature craft stick, then glue craft stick to body.
15. Allow to dry completely.

Tips:

• If this is a class project, break it into steps. Paint one day, cut another, glue the next.
• Some craft stores carry packages of colored craft sticks.
• Put a fairly heavy rock in the center of a paper plate. Glue an upside down paper cup to over the top of the rock. When dry, insert the craft stick into the top of the cup for a fun Turkey Greeter holder.
• Alternatively, you can use construction paper for the feathers so that your turkey lays flat. Use the “sign” for each guest’s name and use as place holders for dinner.

Turkey Napkin Rings

Turkey Napkin Rings are the perfect item for Thanksgiving dinner tables. Kids will be so proud when they set the table with napkin holders they created themselves.

• Flat wooden craft spoons
• Tempera or acrylic paints
• Paper towel tube
• Scissors
• Orange pipe cleaners
• Black marker
• Tacky glue
• Red felt

1. Five craft spoons are required for each ring. Using tempera paint, color one of them yellow for the turkey’s head, the others, a variety of colors (they’ll be used for tail feathers).
2. For the turkey’s body, cut a 2-inch section from a cardboard paper towel tube and paint it brown.
3. From orange pipe cleaners, shape a pair of short legs with three-toed turkey feet. Fit the legs through small holes in the cardboard tube, bending the tips inside the tube to secure them.
4. Use a marker to draw eyes on the face and use tacky glue to attach a red felt wattle.
5. Finally, glue the head to the front of the body and the tail feathers to the back.

Turkey Wreath

The Turkey Wreath is fun turkey craft to do by yourself or with a group. If you are doing it with a group, each person can write something they are thankful for on one of the strips of construction paper before making it into a loop.

• Ring of cardboard (empty cereal boxes work wonderfully)
• Construction paper (red, orange and yellow)
• Scissors
• Glue

1. Trace a small plate and a large plate onto a piece of old cardboard.
2. Empty cereal boxes or frozen dinner boxes work well
3. It doesn’t matter if you go over the folds of the cardboard
4. Cut a small strip of cardboard and glue it onto the back of the ring over any folds in the cardboard.
5. This will reinforce the ring.
6. Cut strips of construction paper (about 1 1/2 inches by 4 inches)
7. Glue the strips into rolls (like making a paper chain)
8. Glue the rolls of construction paper onto the wreath. We made a red, orange and yellow pattern, but you can do it however you wish.
9. Trace a child’s footprint onto a piece of white paper.
10. Color this brown (it will be the turkey’s head)
11. Cut out a teardrop shape and color orange (it will be the turkey’s beak)
12. Cut out two ovals and put eyeballs in them
13. Cut out a wobbler from red paper
14. Fold a piece of orange construction paper in half and cut out a foot shape (this will make two identical feet. Or Use the template pieces provided (on the the dltk-holidays website) for the face and feet.
15. Glue the feet to the back of the wreath.
16. Glue the footprint body to the front of the wreath
17. Glue the face to the body and hang up your wreath.

Clay Pot Turkey

Make a Clay Pot Turkey as a fantastic table decoration or gift for your Thanksgiving hostess.

• One 1-1/2″ Diameter Wooden Ball
• One 2-1/4″ Diameter Clay Pot
• 3 or 4 Feathers
• 6″ Ribbon
• Button
• 6″ Raffia
• Tacky Glue
• Black Finetip Marker
• Small and Large Paintbrushes
• Acrylic Paints in Brown, Tan, Mustard Yellow, Red, and Rose
• Clear Coat Spray

1. For Body: Place newspaper down on work surface. Turn clay pot over and glue wooden ball to bottom of pot. When glue is dry, use large paint brush to paint entire the outside of the clay pot and the entire wooden ball with brown paint. Let dry and apply a second coat. When dry, use large paint brush to fleck on spots of tan paint for effect. This does not have to be perfect! Using small paint brush, paint on feet and beak, use the photo as a guide if needed.

2. For Head: Use small paintbrush to paint on the gobbler in red. Dab large paintbrush or stencil dotter in rose paint. Dab onto newspaper or paper towel until all excess paint is removed. Gently dab onto “cheeks” of turkey’s face. With the black fine tip marker, drawn on eyes and dot nostrils onto beak. Spray entire surface with clear coat.

3. Finishing Touches: Glue miniature bow tie in place, or fashion a simple bow out of ribbon and glue in place. Trim excess to suit your tastes. Tie a piece of jute or raffia through the holes of the green button. Tie a bow and trim excess. Glue button to the body below the bowtie. Glue feathers to the back so that they stick up above the back of the turkey’s head.

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