A Pinteresting Project: Our Thankful Turkey

7:15 AM

Happy Thanksgiving all! Slightly belated, I know, but I've been super busy with my visiting sister and I finally snuck in a few early morning hours to try to catch up a bit.

I've been really excited about Thanksgiving this year because, to be quite honest, our family has a lot to be thankful for. Its been quite a roller coaster ride, and now that things are settled down and we are safe and happy, it was time to acknowledge all of the blessings that we have.

We have never really talked about things we are thankful for during Thanksgiving, which has always nagged me in the back of my mind. After this year, though, we had to change that as I was doing a terrible job teaching my kids the point of the holiday.

Enter our Thanksgiving Turkey, which was another Pinterest inspired craft.  It is originally a Parents.com idea, and I'm super excited to show you our thankful turkey!


The turkey was a cinch to make. Wrap two different sized polystyrene balls in brown yarn - whether you use the same color or different is your prerogative - I liked how the Parents.com one looked.  Use wooden toothpicks to secure the head to the body.  I had a bit of an issue trying to cut a base out of the body and it kept wanting to topple over, so I used additional toothpicks to help prop it up.  Turkey legs!
 


Cut out felt and glue hot glue it to your turkey head...



And cut out a bunch of feathers to dress up your turkey!


We decided to write on the back of our feathers, keeping our "thankfuls" secret until Thanksgiving dinner.  I kept a jar with a pen and blank feathers next to our turkey, and whenever someone thought of something to write, they could put another feather in.


Let me tell you... I was immensely thankful for how thankful my family was! I kept running out of feathers and had to replenish our stock to keep up with demand!

It was a really fun and adorable project, and we really liked keeping our feathers a secret until Thanksgiving dinner.  Before we ate, we took turns plucking our turkey and reading them aloud to the family.  I was very proud of how much thought went into our turkey this year, and this will be a permanent fixture to our Thanksgiving holidays from here on forward.

Here are a few of my favorite feathers!





And this next one was especially interesting... 


Its says that Lance Jr is thankful for banquets! After laughing hysterically for a few minutes, I had to ask if he really knew what a banquet was, or when was the last time he's been to a banquet.  He knew full and well what he wrote, but said in the middle of writing "I am thankful for b..." he forgot what "b" word he was thankful for, and thought of banquet instead. 

I'm so thankful for moments like those :)

Here is the original directions from Parents.com if you'd like to make your very own Thankful Turkey!


Cut a 1-inch sliver off the bottom of a 9-inch polystyrene ball. Wrap sphere neatly in thick dark-brown yarn, covering surface completely; knot on bottom. Make a 4-inch ball from light-brown yarn and attach to body with a wooden craft stick. Create simple facial features using felt: white circles (approximately the size of a quarter, with 1/8-inch pom-poms for pupils) for eyes, yellow triangles for the beak, and long red felt teardrops as the wattle. Cut feather shapes from colored craft paper and bend in half lengthwise to create seam. Glue wooden craft stick to the bottom third of the feather and insert in a fan shape on turkey body.



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2 comments

  1. The New York EscapistNovember 1, 2013 at 7:29 AM

    Cute! How big were the foam balls and where did you get them? I see they are expensive! thanks! I liked hearing about your ritual too - did people read others thanks or their own?

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  2. HeidiDecember 26, 2013 at 12:46 PM

    Sorry for the late reply, I've been on a bit of a hiatus lately... life got so busy! I got the balls at WalMart, but it was a few years ago so I don't exactly remember the price. I do remember the sticker shock, though, so I guess we both were caught off guard at the price! We still do our turkey each year, and we pull a feather at random and make sure it isn't our own, then read them to everyone :) Its really a cute and fun tradition

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