Just in time for Thanksgiving weekend, here are two easy turkey crafts you can make with the family.

Wine Cork Turkeys

Supplies

Cupcake liners
Wine corks
Googly eyes
Red pipe cleaner
Orange felt/paper/foam
Glue

These little guys were a huge hit with my kids; they played with them for an hour, at least! (NOTE: The cupcake ‘feathers’ do not stand up well against an hour of intense preschooler play. But it sure is entertaining!)

We glued two cupcake liners together to give the tail some volume. Mix up funky patterns or just go with basic white and some markers. We used regular size liners on some, and a mix of mini liners and regular liners on others. Both worked great!

Then we glued the folded cupcake liners to the back of the wine cork.

On the front, we glued eyes, beaks, and small twists of red pipe cleaner. (We wrapped it around a skewer for the small twist.) Don’t forget a little twist on top, too!

These guys would make lovely little place markers on your Thanksgiving dinner table.

Turkey Spoons

There are lots of ways to dress these turkeys up, or keep them super simple. Try a few styles and see what works best for you!

Supplies

Wooden spoon
Googly eyes
Coloured paper, foam, popsicle sticks, or feathers
Marker
Glue

I found a great bag of wooden spoons at a discount store, costing less than $1 a piece.

We painted them brown – always a hit with the little hands! Painting anything is a win!

Add some eyes, a beak, and a silly smile. (Yes, I know turkeys don’t really smile, but the kids insisted!)

We tried tracing hands on different coloured paper to use as the turkey’s feathers; works best if you can get the fingers spread out. Craft feathers would be fun, and felt worked okay, too. The painted popscicle sticks were my favourite.

We had some ribbon around, so we tied on some colourful scarves.

Wouldn’t these look sweet in the centre of the table for Thanksgiving dinner – with the little wine cork turkeys as name card holders? A great way to get the kids involved in planning the meal!