Thanksgiving Turkey Craft

It is turkey time! Easy Thanksgiving Turkey craft for kids and adults that will bring a smile to your homemade Thanksgiving decorations. Who knew a walnut shell craft plus a Fall craft plus and acorn craft could make this happy little turkey! Did I mention a Thanksgiving dollar store craft too? Sprinkle a few of these cute little turkeys on the table or even turn this turkey into a place card for a popsicle stick turkey craft.

How To Make Thanksgiving Walnut Turkey Craft

Materials

Whole Walnut

1 Acorn (from your yard or plastic acorns)

Glue and glue gun

2 googly eyes

Red felt and Yellow felt (only scraps are needed)

Craft Stick if making place cards

Maple leaves

Tweezer

Sharpie

Directions

The Thanksgiving Walnut Turkey Craft is not difficult to make and it can certainly be made with children. However the children will need help with the gluing and cutting of felt due to the micro size.

For this craft I utilized my favorite set of craft tweezers; I highly recommend this set of tweezers which have a few different sizes to meet your crafting needs.

Googly eyes can be slippery little devils to place and glue. I’ve been using alot of googly eyes lately in crafts and I compiled a few of my tips and tricks when gluing googly eyes to make the process smoother!

Begin with making the acorn turkey head. See directions below on how to dry an acorn.
For the gobble gobble, cut a small piece of red felt into an oval shape.
There is a little bit of trial and error here to find the size you like for your Thanksgiving Popsicle Stick Place Card. Size the gobble to the whole walnut.
Cut a smaller long triangle for the beak. This will lay flat on top of the oval.
Match the top of the triangle to the top of the red gobble and glue together.
Glue the 2 googly eyes side by side on the top edge of the red and yellow felt.
With the round side of the walnut facing you, place the felt with the top at the center of the walnut to gain an idea if the felt is sized to the walnut.
Turn the acorn with the bottom facing you (the little acorn hat faces toward the back of the walnut.)
Glue the eyes and felt gobble to the top of the acorn.
This is the slightly testy part, with your glue gun and be generous, put a dab of glue on the top of the back of the walnut. Press the acorn/turkey head into the walnut. Before the glue hardens there is a minute or so when you can adjust the tilt of the head to your desire. Adjust.
Then firmly hold the acorn to the walnut for the glue to dry.
TIP: I have a tilted turkey head ! It can be easily be redone. With a little pressure remove the acorn and the dried glue and repeat the steps above.
After the acorn and walnut are adhered, place the walnut on the glue stick and glue.
Add two leaves to the back of the walnut as feathers and you are done! Change it up a little and the dollar store is a fun place to look around to find possible “feathers”. The craft section always has feathers, but also I found these yellow decorations I made into feathers.

Turn The Walnut Turkey Into A Thanksgiving Place Card

As with any new craft the first try at the Turkey Place Card takes the longest and the next ones go much much quicker. The hardest part of this craft I found was finding acorn shells that the squirrels had not already chewed apart! Fresh acorns do need to be dried before using.

Making a Thanksgiving Place Card is very easy with a popsicle or craft stick.

Write the name of your guest with a sharpie on the craft stick.
The name should begin at the end of the craft stick.
With a glue gun, glue the finished Walnut Turkey on the opposite end of the popsicle stick.
Press the turkey firming in the glue and let the glue slightly set so the turkey is balanced on the stick. (No falling over turkeys!)
Let the glue dry.

How to Dry Acorns For Crafts

If you are using acorns from the yard a little pre prep is recommended and wise.

Spread the acorns on parchment paper on a baking sheet.
Bake for one hour at 175 degrees.
Cool the acorns. I actually leave the acorns in the oven overnight.

If in a crunch for time or acorn gathering season has past then articial acorns can be used with no problem. I learned my lesson one year when outside attempting to gather acorns. The squirrels beat me to it! It was late in the Fall and while there were a ton of acorns on the ground the majority of the acorns were already cracked.

Ole fuzzy squirrel beat me to it! The next Fall I started early and gathered a ton of freshly fallen acorns and batch dried the acorns for future use. A word of caution if gathering freshly fallen acorns as a prolific acorn dropping tree can be a hazard to be under (nothing like getting bonked by an acorn dropping from a 100 year old tree!)

7 Thanksgiving Crafts

Decorate for Fall and Thanksgiving with 7 easy Thanksgiving crafts! The turkey and Thanksgiving crafts are dollar store friendly and will brighten up the decorations with a homemade touch and the kids will love participating!