Craftly - Find and Share Crafts

Turkey Place Card Holders
Your children can help decorate your Thanksgiving table and make a gift
for relatives, with these easy to make pinecone turkeys. For an extra
touch add place cards for your family members and then they can take
the handmade turkeys home.

You'll Need:
A dry pinecone for each guest
chenille stems (pipe cleaners) in brown or tan
Craft feathers
Craft glue
Cardstock paper


Lightly dip the ends of the feathers into the glue and then insert into the back of the pinecone turkey body. Repeat until you have all of your tail feathers. Allow the glue to dry. Fold the chenille stem in half and then bend the tip a bit to make the head. Twist the chenille stem around the tip of the pine cone to create the head and neck and then twist to secure. You may want to fashion some feet with the tips of the stem to help hold the turkey in place. Using cardstock paper, cut, fold and write the name on your place card when it's time to set the table, place it in front of the turkey


Variation for an even easier craft!
You'll Need:
-A dry pinecone for each guest
-chenille stems (pipe cleaners) in brown or tan
-Pine sprigs for each setting
-Address Label stickers
Cut the chenille stems in half with wire cutters. Make a loop and twist
the ends for the feathers. Twist a brown or black chenille for the head and neck. Insert the feathers etc. into the pinecone. Use two address labels for each setting. Write the name on one of the labels. Secure the two labels together with the pipe cleaner in between them both. This avoids a messy glue situation! At table setting time, place the turkeys onto a pine sprig,
add a few nuts and your done!
Kit's Tip: I use the "fuzzy" pipe cleaners for thicker feathers.

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Materials

• Scissors
• Lunch-size paper bag
• Tissue paper (white, yellow, red, and orange)
• Glue stick

• template
• Sand or rocks
• LED tea light

Instructions

1. Cut a circle from the seamless side of a lunch-size paper bag. Use the cutout circle as a guide to cut a slightly larger circle from white or yellow tissue paper.
   
2. Cut skinny triangles of red, orange, and yellow tissue paper for the feathers, and cut two wing shapes from red tissue paper. Use a glue stick to affix the feathers and wings onto the tissue paper circle.
   
3. Cut a turkey body (you can download our template) from the brown paper circle, then glue it to the center of the tissue paper collage.
   
4. Line the edge of the bag's circular hole with more glue, then lay the collage circle on top. Fill the bag with about an inch of sand or rocks and nestle an LED tea light inside.
   

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What you'll need:

How to make it:

1. Lay paper bag flat on the work surface.
2. Use crayons or paint (crayons are less messy and will be much easier for younger children) to add stripes of colors to the opening of the bag, about 5-6” long (see image).
3. Open the bag and be sure to add stripes to the sides as well.
4. Cut the strips with scissors (see image).
5. Paint or color the other side of the strips. This is a little messier, so be sure kid are wearing smocks and your work surface is protected. When painting the other side of a strip, the paper may curl up on you. Just hold it flat for a few seconds and this will correct it (see image). Allow the strips to dry completely.
6. Fill the bag halfway with crumpled newspaper.
7. Gather the bag together with your hands, just under the strips, and secure with a rubber band (see image).
8. Pinch the bag, just under the rubber band, to bend the strips upward so that when the bag lies on its side, the strips will be pointing upward. Use your hands to manipulate the strips to point up; these are your turkey’s feathers (see image).
9. Cut the following from felt: Triangle – beak - orange; Heart – gobbler – maroon/red; 2 triangles – feet - brown; Bowtie – green
10. Paint the plastic spoon with tan or brown paint and let dry (see image).
11. Glue the gobbler, beak and eyes onto the spoon face.
12. Place the bag on the work surface on its side with the feathers pointing up. Make a small hole at the end of the bag where the neck and head should be.
13. Push the handle of the plastic spoon into the hole and add some glue to the opening (see image).
14. Cut toes from the flat end of the two brown triangles and dot some glue on the triangle points. Place bag body on top of the feet so glue will catch. Let dry (see image).
15. Glue the bowtie where the spoon meets the bag.

Tips:

1. For added fun, draw a sign on a piece of construction paper that says “Happy Thanksgiving” and glue to the front (chest) of the bag.
2. If you would like to keep the mess minimal, use markers or crayons instead of paint.
3. Save scraps of felt from other projects to use with projects such as this.

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