Thanksgiving Turkey Magnet Clips

Since it's almost Thanksgiving I thought I would repost one of our Thanksgiving crafts.  These turkey clips are very easy to make and a fun craft to do with your child.  Click Here for full instructions and photos.

Painted Jars, Easy Peasy for Kids!

Fall is finally coming! I've seen some lovely painted mason jars, many at Pinterest. You can paint the inside or outside. Spray paint looks great on the outside, I've painted the inside of mine with craft paint. I like how the gloss of the glass is still there when you paint on the inside. This was a "no cost" project for me. I already owned some nice autumn paint colors and had a few jars and flowers too.

While shopping at Michaels, I saw a orange milk tin for sale with raffia ribbon, a label and fall toned flowers...$29.99.  I took that idea, went home and applied it to painted jars. I first painted the jars (they need to dry overnight), then created/printed some vegetable labels. I used a length of silver wire to attach the labels. I just twisted, and twisted and twisted the ends into a knot. Regular raffia tied to a knot at the jars neck. And now a little trick....paint can scrape off the inside with those sharp artificial flowers ends. Use a tissue or fabric to cover the part of the flowers you can't see. I used a baby sock.
Instead of flowers you can use sticks, grass, toys, lolly pops etc. for a more personalized look.

This is a REALLY EASY PROJECT! I hope you make some time to try this one too.

Thanksgiving Folded Fan Turkey

Here is a fun, easy craft for thanksgiving decoration. He can be made to look so many different ways depending on the paper pattern you choose.

Materials Needed:
Scrapbook paper, printed computer paper, wrapping paper (if thick enough), I purchased what you see at the dollar store, I got two packs of printed computer paper and a pack of scrapbook paper.
Brown, Red, Yellow, and Orange Foam Sheets
Thin wooden hearts (I purchased these at Michaels for $.25 each)
Googly Eyes
Tacky Glue
Scissors

Now who doesn't remember how to make a hand folded fan? Hopefully everybody knows what I'm talking about here. The photo will show you somewhat how it is done. Start your folding on the shorter side of your paper, folding back and forth until you run out of paper to fold. When you get to the last fold, hold it flat and then fold the whole thing in half and squeeze it and crease it good at the fold. Let it open up some and using your tacky glue, glue the two center end pieces together and press it all together again like you did when you creased it, I put a book on it for about 2 minutes to make sure it was glued. I failed to get a photo of the folding and glueing process, but I will add a photo if anybody doesn't get what I'm trying to accomplish here.

Hold your fan to the end of your brown foam sheet and just make a mark about 1/2 inch above the fan. Draw the shape of a fat, flat bottomed bowling pin (see the photo above) as tall as the mark you made on the foam. Cut out your turkey body.


Trace the wooden heart onto your orange foam sheet and cut out the shape and glue over the wooden heart. Glue your fan to the center of your heart base. Glue the googly eyes on your turkey head, cut out a yellow foam triangle and a red foam tear drop shape and glue on as shown below. Glue your finished turkey body right in front of the fan on the heart base.


I just love this turkey, and each paper pattern you choose will look different than the next. The first photo shows you how each turkey turned out with the different papers. Holly made the turkey on the right. Happy Thanksgiving!

Kemi & Holly Doran

Fun Foam Autumn Happy Leaves Wreath

My sister Vicki found these foam leaf cutouts at Michaels at half price $4.99. Holly and I were there just the other day and they are still selling at $4.99 a kit. The kit originally came with the leaf cutouts, googly eyes, foam stick-on bow ties and black foam smiles. Vicki used the kit for her Thankful Leaves and gave me what was left over. I got 10 leaves and the bow-ties. I decided we were going to make a wreath out of the leftovers, and I've also seen something similar at the Oriental Trading website (but yet different). We started by adding the bow-ties and googly eyes to each foam leaf and then we used glitter glue to make them smile. We left them to dry for about an hour and started to construct our wreath.


We decided to use popcicle sticks or craft sticks for the base of our wreath. We constructed an octagon as shown above. We doubled the sticks on every other side to reinforce it. Next we just glued the leaves to the base using a glue gun and tied a length of jute rope to the top attached to the popcicle stick base and tied it in a bow after we hung it. This was an easy project that used the leftovers from another project. It's very easy and looks extremely cute.


Kemi and Holly Doran

Oreo Candy Turkeys

I found these cute turkeys in Google Images and wanted to give them a try. I want to give credit to Kimi who the original photo (not shown) belonged to. I didn't find any instructions on how to make them so I wanted to give it a shot at recreating them. I made them two different ways and will describe them both. They were messy to work with and I suggest because of all the handling, if you are going to serve these to guests or children wear some gloves.


Items Needed:
Oreo Cookies or similar sandwich type cookie
Peanut Butter cups
Whoppers or Malted Balls
Candy Corn
Cake Icing
Food Coloring
Sandwich Baggies
Butter Knife


Starting with the Oreo cookies, I tried to just shove the candy corns into the cookies but that didn't work. Carefully pry open a cookie and with a small amount of icing, add some to the top half and then close the cookie again, now stick in the candy corn and they will stick like glue, the icing is the cement holding this whole thing together.


Now lets put them together. First I was using just a butter knife to apply the icing, big mistake.


As you can see by using a butter knife I was using too much icing and it was making a mess, it was hard to not get it all over the cookie.

I decided to put some icing into a baggie and clip a tiny bit off one corner.


This worked much cleaner as you will see in the next photo, was easier to control and didn't get all over the cookie. I just squeezed a small amount of icing on one side of the peanut butter cup and on the top and pressed it onto the cookie as shown below, same for the whopper. For the beak, just break off the tip of one candy corn and use icing to glue to whopper.


This is the best one of the three I made, no visible icing on the cookie for the most part. Next use the icing to glue on googly eyes and your Oreo Candy Turkey is almost complete. Just remember to remind children or guests to remove the eyes before eating. You could also make the eyes out of icing, but I was too lazy, and I just love google eyes for some reason.


If you happen to have some writing icing use that to create turkey feet on the oreo cookie base. But if you don't, you can use a baggie and food coloring to create yellow or orange for the feet. I was using this old tube of writing icing and it wasn't performing well. I suggest not using old writing icing. I hope you enjoy this craft, it was fun and the kids will love to make them and to eat them. Happy Thanksgiving.

Kemi Doran

Pinecone Turkeys Galore!

Items Used for my 7 Turkeys
Pipe Cleaners
Feathers
Scrapbook Paper
Popsicle Sticks
Pencil
Beads
Antique Shell Sequins
White Glue
Hot Glue
Thin Wire
Small Foam Sheet
Piece of Scrap Cardstock
Paper Clips


TURKEY HEAD
Very Easy
Depending on the size of your pinecone, use a third or half piece of pipe cleaner. Bend the end a half inch in for the head and continue to bend so that it looks like a swan. Stick the “swan” into the area you want the neck to come out from. Maneuver the end into a spot where it will stay twisting the pipe cleaner to do it’s thing. You may spot with white glue if you like (I didn’t).


LOOP TAIL TURKEY
Easy
Take 3 pipe cleaners (all different or same, it’s your choice). Make 2 nice loops in each of the pipe cleaners. Place together as a tail and twist together the loose ends. I used white glue to make sure they would stay together and a benefit of that was that it became extra stiff. After drying, I hot glued the tail to the base of the pine cone and held it tight until it cooled

PENCIL SPIRAL TURKEY
Fast and Easy
5 pieces of pipe cleaners. Grab the pencil and create wrapped spirals. Leave about 2 or 3 inches straight, you’ll need to twist these around each other tight and securely to create the fan tail base. Glue to make stiff. Hot Glue the cute tail to the bottom of your pinecone.


BRIGHT BEADED TURKEY
Fast and Easy
Five pipe cleaners, with each one curl the tip over its self and create a small spiral. 7 to 12 beads (depending on the size of the cone) strung up to the spiral. Twist the five bottom ends together, stiffen with white glue and spread out like a fan. Hot glue the tail to the end of your pinecone.


TRADITIONAL FEATHER PINECONE TURKEY
Easy
Cut a 2 to 3 inch shape like a fat rainbow. Lay your feathers out on the “rainbow” to get an idea how many feathers you’ll need and to see how they’ll lay out. Use any type feather you like, but they are all different so test out your feathers before gluing. Hot glue is faster, I used white glue and it needed to dry overnight. Now dry, I wriggled the base of the “rainbow” cardstock (of which the feathers are glued to) into the last row of the pinecone base and it stayed tight.

WOODEN POPSCILE TAIL TURKEY
This was the hardest one to make.
14 and 1/2 popsicle sticks. Divide to 2 groups of seven. Warm up the hot glue. Take a peek at the photo of all the tails, the sticks start off as 2 sets-then they’re glued together with the half stick (you will need to shape the half piece to fit between the two tail fan pieces, scissors and a nail file is all you’ll need to make your shape). Now think how spiral stairs rise up from a single point. We’re going to hot glue the first pieces together at one end and it should look like a tight letter “v”. Hot glue the third stick the same way and it should look like a tight “w” now. Keep gluing and staggering the 7 sticks. You should have a piece that’s looks a little bit smaller than a quarter of a circle. To make the second side of your turkey tail, repeat the same process, BUT the rotation of the staggered spiraling needs to be done in the other direction. Now you have two wooden fans. Place flat on the table with the center sticks touching and the ends face up like a bowl, use something to brace the outer edges or they will come apart from their weight. You’re gonna hot glue the seam and place the extra half stick (shaped to fit now) on the seam to join the two pieces strongly. I tried to hot glue to my pinecone but the weight was too much. I carefully wrapped thin wire around the tail end and the rows near the base of the cone until it felt secure. Harder to do, but a nice natural feel and look with the wood and cone.


FANTAIL TURKEY
Most scrapbook pages are 12” by 12”. I found an Americana print, choose whatever you like, I recommend child drawn paper too. I cut a 3” strip off the side and slowly and carefully began to fold. I’m terrible at this so I treated it like origami and kept folding from even sections. Fold in half, fold each half in half…..I’m nuts, fold how YOU like. Warm up the hot glue. So it’s a really long folded strip. Fold it as small as it can get and wrap a pipe cleaner around the bottom to keep it tight. On the actual bottom of the tightly folded fan glob some hot glue over the edge as if you we’re binding a book. Do again for good measure. While it is cooling down, cut a piece of scrap card stock about 6 inches long by how ever wide your fan folds are. Put hot glue along its length and open up the cooled fan and glue its open bottom to the cardstock. Keep tight with paper clips. You have a lovely little fan tail that will stay open now for good. Hot glue the tail to the base of the pinecone.

SEQUIN TAIL TURKEY
Easy (replace sequins with anything you fancy)
Take a piece of sheet foam I choose red to match the pink in my sequins. I cut a freehand crescent that had the shape of a turkey tail. This one I shaped to fit into the last row at the bottom of the pinecone (No hot glue anywhere). I have used some antique sequins, you might have some yourself but you can glue any little items to the foam tail base. Right now I’m thinking dried cooking beans might look cool too! I white glued the sequins in overlaying and ascending rows to the top of the foam tail. Nice and slow, one row at a time. Let dry overnight. Refit into the last row of the pinecone.

Victoria Swanson

Fall Floral Pumpkin Centerpiece

This is a craft you will want to make no more than 3 days before it's use, the pumpkin will start to deteriorate about the 4th day depending upon it's freshness.


Materials Needed:
Pie pumpkins
Knife
Assorted Silk Fall Flowers
Moss
Styrofoam
Tacky Glue
Aluminum Foil (for stuffing)
Wire cutters

Using your knife, cut open the top of your pumpkin and scoop out all the insides and discard. A parent should always supervise any child no matter what age.


The styrofoam we chose was not as tall as our pumpkins so we needed to stuff aluminum foil in the bottom to raise it up level with the cut top of the pumpkin. Next we carved the styrofoam until it fit into the pumpkin and used the carvings to fill in around the edges and squished it all together so it looked as if it were one solid piece (see photo below). Apply tacky glue to the styrofoam and add a generous amount of moss to hide the foam.


Now the fun begins, start with any large flowers first and work around symmetrically until it looks perfect to you. There is really no wrong way to do it. You may want to start by clipping off all your flowers first or you can clip them as you go along, but you will need to do some clipping with your wire cutters to use only the parts you want for your centerpiece. I suggest the parents also do the clipping, Holly found it was a little hard to clip with her small hands.


This took us approximately a half hour from start to finish and they make a wonderful centerpiece for your fall or Thanksgiving table.


Kemi and Holly Doran

Thankful Autumn Leaves

Foam Sheets to cut leaves from
OR the half price Foam Fall Leaves Activity Box from Michaels (half price 4.99)
Plastic Sticky Gemstones
Sequins
Fine point Marker
White Glue
Ribbon
Scissors
Hole Puncher


I don't usually buy pre-made kits, but this was perfect at that moment. I'd gone to Michaels to see if I could find some great fall colors in foam. I did find sticky foam sheets covered in Christmas glitter, but that will be some other project to come. This activity box was marked down to 4.99. So it's gonna be just right. I rounded up Holly and Jachob out back at the picnic table. Sequins can be just as hard to clean up as kid glitter. I pre glued a couple leaves earlier to give my grandson an idea to what we we're making today.


They simply took off. The samples were all they needed. I've collected all kinds of sequins over the years so they had quite a choice to play with. The kids helped each other and shared the glue wonderfully. Even some of my grown children came out to glue gemstones and sequins of the leaves. After the leaves had dried enough, Holly and I wrote ours (and Jachobs) thankful thoughts. Many were praises of happiness and pets and trains, and the sweetest were notes of thankfulness for Mommy and Daddy, Home and family love.


As we were putting hole punches in the end of the stems for the ribbon to pull through, we realized many of our thoughtful wishes would be hanging upside down because we forget while writing that they'll be hanging from the stem. Oh well, I still think this was a very cute and fun project to do with kids. We hung our leaves outside on the front tree branch of our mesquite tree, and these bright fall colors are wonderful outside....we don't have a traditional fall in Baja Arizona, so this is real cool!




Victoria Swanson

Thanksgiving Turkey Magnet Clips

This was a fun craft that can be made lots of different ways, and I will show you at least 3 different styles.


Materials Needed:
Brown, Orange, Red and Yellow Foam Sheets
Clothes Pins
Scissors
Tacky Glu
Googly Eyes
Feathers (if you have them)
Magnet Strips
Sheet of Paper
Pencil
Raffia


Draw your turkey body onto your sheet of paper, My body is approximately 2-1/4" tall and 1-3/4" wide. It's like a round circle with a smaller circle overlapping at the top. Cut out your body pattern and trace onto your brown foam, then cut out your foam turkey body.


Measure and mark cut lines using your clothes pin for width. You want your strips to be just as wide as your clothes pin. I did this on both ends and just eyed the cut accross from mark to mark. You'll want you strips at least 4-5 inches long, each strip can be cut in half to make two. Cut two strips of each color (orange, red, and yellow). Cut your strips in half making 4 strips of each color.


Glue your foam body onto your clothes pin with Tacky Glue or glue gun, I left a little space at the bottom to glue a raffia bow. Choose the color you want for your center feather and slip it under your turkey's head and glue in place and cut off at the end of your clothes pin.



I clipped the ends of my strips on an angle to make it easier to glue behind your turkey body. Alternate colors, and the more strips you add they will start to overlap slightly as you glue them in place. If you are using Tacky Glue, be patient, it will slide around a bit, just hold them in place for a minute and they will stay in place. Clip each as shown to make the appearance of fanning out. After it's all dry, you can start on your turkey's face.


Glue on your googly eyes. Cut out a small triangle of yellow foam and glue upside down underneath the googly eyes, then cut out a small tear drop shape of red foam and glue right under the triangle. Tie a small bow from two strips of raffia, make it about as wide as the turkey's body or a little larger and glue to the bottom of the turkey and cut the ends to about an inch and a half.

If you have self sticking magnet strips, then adhere about an inch length to the back of your clothes pin, or glue a strip if it's not a self-stick. Stick him to the nearest metal item to you and admire! Below you will see two other ways to make these magnet turkey clips.


The turkey on the right was made with silk autumn leaves, I just cut off sections of the leaves and glued them around and under the body. Same for the feathers, glue them around behind the body. Happy Thanksgiving!

Kemi Doran