We might be still some time away from the festive season fever fully gripping us, but if you ask us, it’s never too early to start thinking about Thanksgiving! While you’re busy worrying about who in your family will make the turkey and stuffing, who will do the potatoes and dessert, and who will host, it is also a good idea to keep your kids busy with some awesome DIY projects with a festive theme.
Check out these 15 cute Thanksgiving crafts and hands-on projects that will get even the littlest members of your family into the spirit of the season!
1. Turkey “conecakes”
Cupcakes are an awesome snack, but have you ever thought about taking your favourite treat to the next level? We were pretty excited when we discovered these amazing “conecakes” by Tonya Saab ! They’re a cupcake inside a waffle cone, which is already cool, but the fun doesn’t stop there. While you move on to prepping for the big dinner, give your kids some chocolates and some Swedish fish and let them transform your conecakes into turkeys!
2. Leaf feather turkeys
Have you ever noticed that the autumn leaves that fall on the ground are the same colours as the feathers you’d see in the tail of a turkey? Take advantage of that by having your kids grab handfuls of leaves from the yard and pairing those leaves with some brown construction paper or felt for the turkey’s body and head. Fan the leaves out like an impressive tail behind the bird, just like Baby Center.
3. Gumdrop turkeys
Did you like the idea of letting your kids make turkey treats, but the conecakes sound a little more high maintenance than you have time for? Grab a pack of fruit gumdrops and some toothpicks and follow in Celeste Rockwood‘s footsteps to make little turkeys!
4. Colourful glove turkey
Do you have a spare box of plastic gloves lying around and an endless supply of Fruit Loops and Cheerios because they’re your kids’ favourite breakfast cereal? Then you have almost everything you need to make these hilarious glove turkeys by Mom It Forward! Fill each glove finger with a row of coloured Fruit Loops and fill up the body with Cheerios, then tie off the bottom opening. Stick on some googly eyes and a beak, gobble, and feet made of paper. It’s ridiculous looking and we love it.
5. Thankful pine cone turkeys
We absolutely adore this cute idea from Creating Couture Parties that combines crafting and thankfulness activities for your kids. Glue googly eyes and a paper beak to a brown pom pom and then glue the pom pom to a pine cone. Make paper hand prints for a turkey tail and write “I’m thankful for…”. Have your kids write the things they’re thankful for on coloured strips of paper and stick those between the pine cone spines too!
6. Thanksgiving turkey bowling
Do your kids have an old bowling pin set that they still play with, but that they’ve lost a little bit of interest in? Revamp it for the holiday season by using foam and feathers to turn the pins into hilarious little turkeys, just like Makes and Takes did! If you’re a football loving family then you know this is the time for footballs instead of bowling balls, so let the kids knock the turkeys down with the ol’ pig skin instead!
7. Thankful tree
Do you like the thankfulness crafts but your kids have already driven you turkey crazy with how many crafts they’ve made? Try making a thankfulness tree instead! Grab a decent sized branch and lodge it in a bucket or planter using rocks. Next, cut out leaf shapes and write what you’re thankful for on them, then stick them to the ends of the branches, just like The DIY Mommy.
8. Fall newspaper tree
Maybe you like the thankfulness tree idea but you’d rather not have a branch in your house? Save up some newspapers and help your kids make the shape of a tree up one of your blank walls, rolling and bunching the papers so they look like branches and a trunk. Projects for Preschoolers did that and then added thankfulness leaves as the last step!
9. Lovely leaf tea lights
Do you have some simple mason jar tea light candles that don’t add much to decor and aren’t really seasonal? Then they’re the perfect canvas to make some Thanksgiving table pieces! We like Paper Source‘s simple idea of cutting leaf shapes from coloured paper and gluing them around the top of the jars under some orange ribbon.
10. Be thankful utensil holders
Do you love designing cute little seasonal place settings complete with DIY touches for each person who comes to Thanksgiving dinner? Then we think you’ll like this cutlery pocket idea from The Idea Room. The pockets are simple and made from cardboard, sewn down the side in a cute visible seam. Draw, colour, or paint a “Be Thankful” message on the front and pop each person’s cutlery in!
11. Thankful turkey box
I Heart Crafty Things suggests taking the idea of a thankfulness activity a little further by making an entire box for people to slip things they’re thankful for into throughout the week. Your kids will love making the turkey’s head and tail our of fun coloured paper and everyone will enjoy hearing the lovely messages people have written when you open the box up and read it at the dinner table on Thanksgiving.
12. Turkey treat gifts
The Crafty Blog Stalker suggests making a cute little novelty treat for each child coming to dinner. Sure, you could just buy them all some chocolate from the store, and that’s a great idea for filling these DIY treat packs, but making your own packaging makes things a little more fun. We love that the treats look like the turkey’s belly feathers!
This Thanksgiving let the little ones get more involved in the decoration of your home and that gala Thanksgiving dinner as well!
