Tissue Paper Turkeys

Jack's 2 feather turkey. He wasn't so interested in making the feathers as he was in gluing.

Micah, Jack and Hailey with their turkeys. As you can see these are cute with 2, 3 or even 5 feathers.

Supplies:
-fall colored tissue paper
-scissors
-construction paper (brown, white, black, yellow, red)
-contact paper
-paper plate
-crayons or paint
-glue stick
-duct tape

1. Cut out parts. Feathers, eyes, beak, hangy red thing, feet, turkey head, paper plate in half and tissue paper squares.
2. Unroll some contact paper and peel back the non-stick side. Place feather outlines on sticky side and recover with non-sticky paper. Cut out around feather leaving a decent sized border to be trimmed later.
3. Assemble feathers: Peel backing from contact paper. With sticky side up place tissue paper squares inside the feather outline. Once finished unroll contact paper again. Peel back the sticky side. Place the decorated feather, sticky side up on the backing. Cover with the sticky paper that you had just unrolled. Trim around edge of feather.
4. Assemble turkey: Either color or paint the paper plate. My goal was to have a brown plate, but the kids had other ideas. Glue the face and feet onto the turkey head and glue the turkey head onto the paper plate. Turn plate over and using duct tape, tape the feathers to the back of the plate. I also used little tape rolls between the feathers and the plate to keep them from falling back too far.

Tissue paper crafts like these can be used for a lot of different things. Just cut an outline and fill it in. 

Crowns

Supplies

-aluminum foil

-20" wide tissue paper

-tape or glue

-stickers

Crowns How-To

1. Tear off aluminum foil 20 inches long. Fold in half twice, long sides together, or cuff; lay cuff with opening toward top.

Fold 20-inch-wide tissue paper in half lengthwise twice; lay inside V of the cuff, folded edge up, so bottom edge is just below center of cuff.

2. Fold foil strip in half again, folding up from the bottom (this will hold the tissue in place).

3. Cut flat-topped points in tissue paper, leaving attached at the fold, and decorate with stickers.

4. Overlap ends to proper size, and slip one end of foil inside the other. Tape or glue together.

From Martha Stewart Kids, Special Issue 2004

Yarn Ball Turkey

Supplies

-9" polystyrene ball

-knife

-dark brown yarn

-light brown yarn

-wooden craft stick or wooden skewers

-felt (white, yellow, red)

-black pom-poms

-construction paper

-scissors

-glue
-marker

What a Turkey

Ask each child to write what she's thankful for on a paper feather, then stick it into this cute turkey centerpiece. 

How to make it: 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.


This project could be made easy for the littlest kids by pre-making several parts and letting the child simply decorate the feathers any way he/she wants. i.e. coloring, stickers, painting, glitter... Or this project could be for an older child who has the skills to write, wrap yarn, cut and glue.

From: Parents.com