Turkey Basket Craft #CanYouTopThis

Elmer’s is running a contest to see what people can create out of an Elmer’s Trifold Board.  The projects are being compiled at the Can You Top This website for everyone to see.  When I decided this sounded like a fun pre-Thanksgiving project for the kids, so I went to Walmart and bought a board.  When my homeschooled kids saw me walk in the house with it the first thing they said was, “But I don’t want to do a science project!”  Once I assured them we were going to cut it up and make something, not document a science experiment they were relieved, and we started brainstorming ideas.  We decided to go with a Turkey Centerpiece, created out of the tri-fold board and an old basket I had gotten for free.  The project ended up costing $5 to make, $3 for the board and $2 for feathers.  Here is what we did.

Tools and Supplies:

• Elmer’s Tri-fold Board
• Invisible tape
• Glue Spots
• Double sided tape
• Feathers
• Paint
• Rectangular basket
• scissors
• paint brushes

Directions:

1. Cut out a semi-circle from the tri-fold board to be the turkey’s tail.  I can’t give exact dimensions, because it depends on the size of your basket.  We had a 6” x 8” x 5” basket, and made the semi-circle with a 12” radius and 17” high.  We just held the basket up to the board and sketched the proportions that looked right to us.
2. Paint the board with lots of bright colors.  The idea here was that if we painted it we wouldn’t have the white background showing through the feathers.  My kids went nuts with the feathers anyway, so you might be able to skip this step.
3. Attach the feathers to the board in a fan pattern.  We used tape and glue spots to hold the feathers in place.   
4. Draw a turkey head on another piece of the tri-fold board.  Again, we just did this free hand, but we thought an 11” high turkey head looked right with the size of our tail and basket.   I wanted to put a Pilgrim hat on the turkey, but that idea was vetoed by the kids.
5. Paint the head.  My kids had a long discussion about the best color to make the head, but settled on orange.       
6. Attach the head and tail to the basket with double sided tape.

It is kind of a cross between a peacock and a turkey!  We filled the basket with our left over Halloween candy and put it in our picture window, so everyone can see it as they come to the door.  We thought about using it as a centerpiece for Thanksgiving, but since we are going to my mom’s for dinner I was worried I’d be cleaning feathers out of the car for the next few months, so we will leave it here as a window decoration.