Fun kids craft ideas

Kids craft ideas easy

Hope everyone had a very happy Thanksgiving! Even though Turkey Day has passed for this year, I wanted to share this cute & super-duper easy “Glove Turkey” kids table centerpiece that I made for local news segment this week. It’s a fun kids Thanksgiving craft project you can bookmark for next year, AND it would also make for a really cute Farm Themed Birthday Party centerpiece or cake topper.

These little gobblers were actually so easy to make I’m even considering a little red & green Christmas Turkey Parade for one of the kids Christmas tables this year. ;) The other thing I think you’re going to like here is the cost. I used gloves from Target that were $3 a pair, so the body for each turkey was about $1.50, and they’re just stuffed with paper towels! Scroll down for full details & instructions. Enjoy!

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MATERIALS

– Gloves (each pair will yield 2 turkeys)
– candy eyes or plastic “googly” eyes
– patterned paper (Grateful Tree collection used here)
– wood dowels (1 per turkey)
– twine
– glue dots or hot glue
– scissors

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STEP BY STEP INSTRUCTIONS

1. Fold a large paper towel in half and cut into four equal sections. Roll each section up. (You could also use quilt batting or tissue paper instead of paper towels.)

2. Stuff each glove finger with one rolled paper towel section. Trim the length, if needed.

3. Once the fingers are done, stuff the palm of the glove to create a nice plump “belly” for the turkey. I crumpled paper towels into a ball shape first. Doesn’t need to be perfect though!

4. Insert a dowel into the turkey – you might need to rework the stuffing a bit so the dowel fits about half way up. Tie with twine to secure. You should end up with something that looks like this:

5. Now your turkey needs eyes! Use a balled up glue dot or hot glue gun to adhere an eye to each side. Both adhesives will work, but glue dots are safer if the little ones are helping. :)

6. You’ll need “double sided” paper for the beak. If your patterned paper is single sided (like mine was) – just glue a small scrap of it together to make it double-sided, then cut a small triangle to use as the beak. I only attached the beak to one side, but made sure it hung over the edge enough that it was visible from both sides.

7. Cut 8 small “feathers” per turkey from your patterned paper. Just eyeball the feathers by cutting them into simple leaf shapes – they don’t need to be perfect.

8. Once you have 8 feathers cut (4 for each side) use a glue dot to attach a feather to each finger.

9. And you’re done! Display your turkeys by inserting them into styrofoam filled vases or pots. Cover the styrofoam with a themed filler like dry beans, maize, hay, wood chips, etc.

Side note: You could also insert these turkeys into a cake for a cute farm themed birthday party cake topper!

For the finishing touches on the centerpiece, I embellished the turkeys with party circles from our Grateful Tree Printable Collection, which is also where the patterned paper is from that’s used for the feathers. The vases are embellished with more patterned paper and the Grateful Tree paper “napkin rings” as well.

http://blog.hwtm.com/2012/11/stuffed-mitten-turkeys-kids-craft-decoration/