Kids Craft: Hand and Foot Print Turkey

Here’s another one from my childhood. This adorable turkey uses your childrens’ hand and foot prints. It can be used as a decoration and then saved from year to year as a keepsake. Best of all, no two will be exactly alike, so each of your kids can make their own unique Thanksgiving turkey.

• First, take a sheet of brown construction paper and trace your child’s feet. You can do this with, or with out shoes, but you will have a more rounded turkey if you leave the shoes on.
• Cut out the feet. Glue the heals, one on top of the other, allowing the toes to be spread apart slightly. This will give your turkey a fuller body.
• Trace your child’s hands. Cut out several in a variety of fall colors.
• Glue the hands to the back of the feet, these will become your turkey’s tail.
• Now cut out and glue a beak, wattle, eyes, and feet onto your turkey.

Additional options:

• When tracing and cutting, use the reverse side, the one you have not written on, as the front of your turkey.
• The eyes can be drawn, made with construction paper, or wiggly eyes can be used for fun.
• If your turkey is flat (no wiggley eyes), you can glue the entire thing to an 11 x 17 sheet of paper and laminate it to make a place mat. Or you can just laminate the turkey to save from year to year.

Enjoy this craft, and have a Happy Thanksgiving!

Kids Craft: Thanksgiving Hand-print Wreath

Are you and your family thinking of Thanksgiving yet? It is right around the corner. (Only three weeks away.) Here is a great craft idea for Thanksgiving that will get the whole family involved. And, as usual, there are a variety of things you can do with this, by just using your imagination . . . and a few simple tips. This idea, while aimed at Thanksgiving, could be done for a variety of holidays with only slight variations.

Here is what you’ll need:

• Colored paper (scrapbook or construction), craft foam, or felt (all in autumn colors)
• Poster board, cardboard, or foam core board.
• Scissors and/or exacto knife
• Glue
• Embellishments - These can be buttons, berries, pom poms, pipe cleaners, ribbons . . . You name it, you can use it.

Here’s what you’ll want to do:

1. Cut out the shape for your wreath. You can make your wreath a circle, oval, or even a square. The choice is yours. You’ll do this with the Poster board, card board, or foam core.
   
2. The three materials suggested were chosen for your so that you would have a material choice that would work with the type of project you were wanting to do. If you are wanting a quick fun project, that you will not be keeping from year to year, then use card board or poster board. Both of these are disposable and either inexpensive or free. If you would like something a little nicer, use the foam core board. This can be found with poster board and matte board material at your local craft store. If you can not find it, a sales associate should be able to help you. This is basically two pieces of poster board sandwiched around a 1/8 inch layer of foam. It is very durable and can be cut with an exacto knife.
3. Next, trace the hands of each member of your family. And cut out the shapes. If you are doing a large wreath with a small family, then you will need more than one pair of each person’s hands. Cut multiples if needed. For this, you will use either colored paper, craft foam, or felt in autumn colors.
4. If you are wanting to do this fast, easy, and with out much expense, you will use construction paper. If you want a nicer quality, with out huge cost, and may not keep this from year to year, then you may want scrap book paper. If you will keep this for several years, then you will likely want to use craft foam or felt.
5. If you do not want to pay for craft foam or felt, but want a nicer finished product, then you can use a technique called Paper Toile. To do this, take your hand prints cut from scrapbook paper and lay them front side down, onto your computer’s mouse pad. Then take a rounded surface similar to the tip of a sharpie lid and trace around the handprint. You will do this about an 1/8 to a 1/16 of an inch form the edge of the paper. Begin softly, and practice on a scrap page, till you get the right pressure. If you are patient, you will be able to create a rounded effect on the edges of your handprints. This will give them a little extra depth and add a nice finished detail to your wreath.
6. Once all of your handprints are cut out, lay them out on your wreath so that your wreath shape is covered. Now you can glue this down.
7. It’s time to embellish! It’s also time to use your imagination. You can change the whole mood of your wreath based on how you embellish it. Buttons placed in small clusters of 1 to 3 around your wreath would have cute, hand-crafted feel. If you used pipe cleaners (maybe swirled into a circle) and pom poms you are creating a much more lighthearted and whimsical feel. Or you could use berries and bows. This would create a sophisticated affect. The choice is yours.

And, as always, you are only limited by what you can imagine. Lay out your options, if you don’t like the look, don’t glue them down, change them to something else. Most important of all, have fun!

Kids Crafts: Li'l Leaf

This charming little leaf is made using your child's hand and foot prints. I remember this from grade school. In one of our classes, we had these hanging from the ceiling, one for each child. He can be hung from the ceiling or on a wall. Here's how we made him, along with a few variations.

1. First I went out and found a leaf in the yard. I copied it, larger, onto a piece of construction paper. I chose orange, yellow, red, and brown for this project since it is fall. I did not like the whole leaf, so I chose the best half and folded the page and cut along the line I liked the most. The side of the construction paper that I'd drawn on became my back side. I then drew a face for the leaf.
2. Next, I got my 4 year old daughter to let me trace her hands and feet. Then I cut these out for her. I let my 6 year old cut his own.
3. Using strips of yellow construction paper, folded like an fan, I made legs and arms. The legs, arms, hands and feet are affixed to the leaf using tape. However, you can also glue them, or staple them.
4. The finished product can be hung from the ceiling or on a wall.

Additional options to mix it up:

• You can use ribbon to make the arms and legs, instead of construction paper.
• You can use the cardboard that comes off the back of a used note pad for your leaf to make it more sturdy.
• Our leaf, pictured above, is slightly wilted. My son spilled a drink. Since part of the leaf was wet, I took a paper towel and wet it with more of the same drink. I then dabbed this over the leaf to cover our accident. You can do this with tea or coffee to stain you leaf and add texture.
• You can allow your children to draw on the leaf, hands, and feet. Even if they just draw stripes, patterns, or shapes. This would add visual interest and personalize your leaf more.
• Little girls can add jewelry or other accessories to their leaves. These can be draw, real, or created with craft items.
• Boys can add caps, collars, jackets, balls in the hands, shoes on the feet, etc.
• You can embellish your leaf with things around the house, paint it, etc.
• The list could go on, and on.

As always, the goal is to spend time with your kids, have fun, and be creative. There are no rules to creativity, and the only limit is your imagination. :)