Thankful Turkey Centerpiece Craft With Free Printable | Mommy and Me Monday | 247th ed

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With only a couple weeks left until Thanksgiving, the girls decided we needed some holiday appropriate decor in the house. I thought it would be fun to take some things that were needing recycling and make a Thankful Turkey Thanksgiving centerpiece for our table.

We had fun creating our own Thankful Turkey from milk containers, cardboard, snack and cereal boxes and random scrapbook paper. We first gathered all of our supplies (milk gallon, boxes and scrap paper) from the recycle bin.

I created a template of all of the turkey shapes (feel free to click to download…scroll to the end of the post to grab it) to cut out. Here’s a preview of the Thankful Turkey Template. Click on it to download full-sized (8.5 x 11).

Since we knew the tail feathers would need to stand up, we glued the paper to the unfolded thinner boxes (think cereal or snack boxes) for reinforcement, while the oldest cut out the template pieces.

We found it best to spread the glue in a thin layer with our fingers to make sure the paper had good contact with the cardboard.

While the glue was drying, we traced our template pieces onto the appropriate colors, keeping in mind that it was best to trace on the back of the paper so we couldn’t see our pencil lines.

We decided to use our hands as the template for the turkey feet.

Once the glue was dry, we traced our feather shape onto the paper glued to the box. Since we traced onto the visible side, we just cut inside the lines. We didn’t worry about one edge hanging off the paper since it was going to be glued onto the back of the bird.

Once all of the feathers and other pieces were cut out, we decided on the feather colors we wanted on our birds.

Then, each family member received a feather for one person’s bird. We all wrote on our feather what we were thankful for for that person.

The back edge of the milk container was a corner and was too hard to glue all of the feathers. So, we found another scrap of thicker cardboard and glued it onto the container. This gave us a nice flat surface on which to glue all of the feathers so they would shoe easily. (All gluing onto the milk container was done by an adult because a hot glue gun was necessary.)

Once Mr. Thankful Turkey was admired, we had a fabulous table centerpiece for the rest of the month. (Take note, N decided that the cat needed to do a feather as well as her two year old sister, and herself. Which by the way, she’s thankful for herself!).

We have bird feathers to finish off for everybody else in the family so they can each see what we all appreciate about them!

In a rush and don’t want to glue everything to a milk container? You can always take the same idea and template pieces and make a body out of a piece of paper. But, we are partial to the milk jug!

Download the turkey shapes!

Grab the template of all of the turkey shapes here (feel free to click to download)

Click on it to download full-sized (8.5 x 11).

Have you and your kids been inspired to create something new from something old?

It’s time again for Mommy and Me Monday. Pop out from behind that camera and capture yourself in action with your kids. Check out the inaugural Mommy and Me Monday for more information. Need another reason to participate in Mommy and Me Monday? Read my post about why I blog ;with words from a friends’ husband.

**There really is only one requirement here, a picture of you and your baby or babies; your children, your “baby” (ie significant other) or even your fur babies. If your picture doesn’t feature you (meaning you must be in the picture), I will have to delete your link. It’s not fair to the others that follow the rules.*