Fall & Thanksgiving Crafts For Kids!

Well October has come and gone and the holidays are approaching faster than you can imagine! Here are two great crafts to do with your little ones, now that it gets dark at 5:00 thanks to daylight savings, there's a lot more indoor time!

First we have these adorable leaves that are SO simple and would make great Thanksgiving table decorations! 

Paper Leaves

• 9x12 inch sheets of construction paper: red, yellow, orange (one sheet for each leaf)
• Acrylic paints: yellow, orange, red, rust
• Paintbrush
• Pencil
• Tracing paper
• Scissors
• Double-sided adhesive tape
• Chenille stems: light brown, yellow, orange

1. Print the leaf pattern.
2. Paint the pieces of paper with a brush damp with paint, making different-size strokes across the front and back of the paper; let dry.
3. Make a 1/2-inch-wide fold along one long edge of paper; press a sharp crease to fold. Fold the rest of the paper like a fan (folds should run parallel to 1/2-inch fold). Fold in half crosswise, matching the short edges.
4. Trace the leaf pattern onto tracing paper; cut out. Place pattern on top of folded paper, trace, and cut out.
5. Open the paper and refold all long fan creases. Refold in half crosswise, securing the ends in the center with tape.
6. Thread one chenille stem through the middle opening at the fold for the stem. Fold the end of the chenille stem over and twist to make sure it stays attached. Curl the other end of the chenille stem as shown in the photo.

Flower Turkeys! Thanks to ~Our Best Bites~ 

• Artificial flowers in Thanksgiving colors
• Hot glue gun
• Scissors 
• Brown/black/orange felt
• Google eyes 

1. First pull the flower off of the stem.  Then grab the center of the flower (that little brown part) and pop it right out.  It should just be attached to the green backing on the other side and they pop out pretty easily.
2. Now you’ll see that each flower has several layers of petals, just separate them all.  These are all from that one flower:

3. Now take those layers of petals and mix them up and stack them, biggest to smallest. 

4. Then grab a pair of scissors and cut your petal pile right in half.  Take a hot glue gun and put a small dab of glue between each layer so they stick together just like that.

5. While those are drying, cut some turkey shapes out of brown felt.   I just free-handed mine, so they’re all a little different.  But c’mon, what turkey family all looks alike?

6. Then just glue your little turkey guy right onto the petals.

7. The only other thing you need is to glue on a tiny little orange felt triangle for a beak and googly eyes if you want.  They look cute without eyes too.  Googly eyes instantly make anything you put them on appear deranged.

8. And you're done! What can you do with these cute little creatures?! 

 

Enjoy!! Happy November :)