Thanksgiving Turkey Crafts
Celebrate this Thanksgiving by making some crafts to honor the turkey! We created three simple and fun turkey crafts you can do at home this year: a toilet paper tube turkey, a clothespin turkey and a salt dough handprint turkey! We used our Safari Ltd. turkey figurine to help us determine how to decorate each of our homemade turkeys. Read below to learn how to make all three of these crafts!
Craft #1: Paper Tube Turkey
Materials:
- 1 toilet paper tube (or shortened paper towel tube)
- 1 paper grocery bag
- Scissors
- Paint sticks or washable paint
- Googly eyes
- 1 red pipe cleaner
- Yellow felt or construction paper
- Hot glue gun (*always use with an adult present!)
How To:
First, cut down the sides of your paper grocery bag and lay it down flat on the table. Use paint sticks or washable paint to color your paper. We used fall colors like red, orange, pink and gold! Next, use a brown paint stick or brown washable paint to paint your toilet paper tube. Allow both to dry.
Once your paint is dry, cut the brown paper bag into 7-9 large feather shapes. Use your hot glue gun to glue these to the back of the toilet paper tube and create the turkey’s tail. Glue two googly eyes to the front of the toilet paper tube. Bend a pipe cleaner into the shape of a turkey wattle and glue this on as well. Finally, cut a small triangle from yellow felt or construction paper and glue this on as the beak!
This craft makes a great place card at your Thanksgiving table! You can stand a turkey at everyone’s seat to liven up your table decor.
Craft #2: Clothespin Turkey
Materials:
- Round paper coffee filter
- Watercolor paints
- Paint brush
- Wooden clothespin
- Brown paint
- Scissors
- Clear tape
- Glue
- Googly eyes
- 1 red pipe cleaner
- Orange felt or construction paper
How To:
Start by folding your coffee filter in half. You can use brown or white coffee filters for this project. Once folded, use your watercolor paints to paint your coffee filter. This will become the turkey’s tail! We used fall colors like red, yellow, orange and pink on ours. This is also a great place to take a look at your Safari Ltd. turkey together to determine what tail colors would be best! Next, use brown paint to paint a wooden clothespin. This will become the turkey’s body. Let your coffee filter and clothespin dry completely before moving on.
Once everything has dried, cut a vertical slit in the middle of the coffee filter along the folded edge. This slit should go about half way up the filter. Open your clothespin and slide it into this slit, then close. Use a couple pieces of clear tape to secure the sides of the coffee filter to the back of the clothespin. Next, use glue to add googly eyes, a red pipec leaner piece for the turkey wattle and an orange beak cut from your felt or construction paper!
Craft #3: Salt Dough Handprint Turkey
Ingredients/Materials:
- 2 cups all purpose flour
- ½ cup salt
- ¾ cup warm water
- Small bowl
- Straw
- Parchment paper
- Acrylic paint
- Paint brush
- Optional: clear glaze or ModPodge
How To:
First, you will need to make your salt dough. Preheat your oven to 250 degrees. Mix the flour, salt and warm water in a bowl until combined. They should form a slightly sticky ball of dough. You can add small amounts of additional water if needed to bring the dough ball together.
Once your dough is mixed, remove it from the bowl and knead it for several minutes. This step helps keep your dough from puffing when baked! Roll your dough out to about ¼ inch thickness. Use a bowl to cut a circle shape from your dough.
Place the circle onto a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper. Have your child press their handprint into the dough while it is still wet. Help them press down each finger and their palm and lift gently.
Use a straw to make a small hole in the dough if you want to be able to hang your creation! Bake at 250 degrees for about 2 hours. If the dough still hasn’t hardened completely, remove from the oven and allow it to air dry overnight before painting. If you have extra dough, you can use cookie cutters to make other dough shapes to decorate!
Once your salt dough is dry and hard, you can paint it! I used acrylic paints for ours. Start by filling in the hand with reddish brown paint, then add details to make your hand look like a turkey! I even painted a little pilgrim hat on ours.
Let your paint dry and then seal with a clear sealer, like ModPodge, if desired. You can put a ribbon through the hole to hang your hand turkey ornament. These make awesome Thanksgiving gifts for grandparents, too!
This post is by Emily Limer. Emily is a preschool teacher and mom of two toddlers who love to play with Safari Ltd. animals!
You can follow her on Instagram @makingwithmommy for more kids craft and play ideas.