October is filled with ghosts and goblins and December is all about lights, Santas, candy canes, and decorated trees. Poor November kinda gets jilted with little beyond a few pinecones or fall colored flowers placed here and there. Thanksgiving crafting just became as much fun as the other holidays, with this turkey windsock toilet paper roll craft, inspired by Happiness is Homemade, that is guaranteed to liven up your holiday decor.
Turkeys are not commonly recognized as an attractive bird. Shhh – don’t tell them! But, with this fun craft, we can create a turkey that people can easily agree is the cutest fowl around. Haul out your craft supplies box and you might just be surprised at how many items you already have for this simple, inexpensive craft. Leftover feathers, scraps of construction paper, pieces of foam and likely multiple sizes of googly eyes will find new purpose in this craft.
ALSO TRY: Sock turkey craft
Need a project to keep the kids busy this weekend? This is an ideal craft to do with children. Why not include the neighborhood kids as well? Kids of all ages can help with the painting and the glueing of feathers and ribbons. They’ll just need a bit of notice to save the next empty toilet paper roll they have. If inviting neighbors and their kids, get parents to help with the necessary supplies and to provide some extra hands to help little ones with their creations.
This would also be a simple, fun craft for preschool and elementary school classrooms. As a classroom activity, this could be done whole class with helpers, depending on the age of the students, or as a center activity with a parent volunteer. Just imagine how festive your classroom would look with a flock of turkeys hanging from the ceiling, whiteboards and in windows. They could then migrate home for Thanksgiving.
A bit sturdier option to the toilet paper roll is an empty aluminum can, bottom and top removed, label free, cleaned and dried. Once decorated, these could be hung in the house or outside from the porch, a tree branch, a flag holder – anywhere they can hang freely.
Experiment with different supplies to create your turkeys. Faux feathers are great but any material you have on hand that will remain upright once glued would also be ideal. In place of feathers you could use leaves or trace a child’s hand as the “feathers”. However you chose to adorn your turkeys, you’ll have lots of fun creating them and they’ll make a great addition to your Thanksgiving decor.
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Paint the toilet paper roll red
A simple paper roll can be used to make a super cute holiday craft.
Then paint the roll brown
Get started by painting two coats of paint on the paper roll.
Begin to hot glue the feathers, affixing them on the inside of the roll
The feathers are a standout detail on this craft. Add as few or as many as you like.
Continue to hot glue the feathers using red, brown, yellow and white feathers
A variety of colors really make your turkey unique.
Glue the orange hanging string to the top of the paper roll
Be sure the orange string is firmly attached as this is what your turkey will be hung from.
Attach the ribbon to the top inside edge of the paper roll
Hot glue-guns come in handy with just about any craft you want to do.
Begin to glue the ribbons to the open end of the tube.
These ribbons will look beautiful hanging from the bottom of the windsock.
Glue different lengths and colors of ribbons to the open end of the tube
The more variety in color and length that you add, the more your windsock is sure to stand out!
Hot glue the googly eyes, paper nose and pipe cleaner gobbler to the paper tube
Googly eyes are good to have on hand, as they are used in a variety of crafts.
Aren’t these darling?
Great for holiday decor around the house or on the porch.
Gobble gobble!
Fun for the kiddos too!
The feathers really make these windsocks pop!
Get as creative as you like with these guys and put your own spin on them.
Turkey windsock toilet paper roll
Save up your paper rolls. So many possible crafts!
Materials:
- Toilet paper tube
- Paper plate
- large googly eyes
- brown paint
- foam brush
- ribbons in fall colors
- feathers
- orange foam sheet
- hot glue gun
- red pipe cleaner
Instructions:
- Place tube on paper plate
- Paint the entire tube brown (probably needs two coats)
- Glue feathers to inside of the back end of the tube
- Cut ribbon to hang windsock. Make sure the top of the ribbon where the windsock will hang is taller than the feathers on the tube
- Glue ribbons to the other open end of the tube all the way around the inside
- Cut ribbons to desired length
- Glue googly eyes
- Cut beak/nose in a long triangle shape out of the orange foam
- Glue to tube for the nose
- Shape red pipe cleaner in the shape of turkey gobbler
- Glue to turkey face