Easy #Thanksgiving craft: Turkey centerpiece made from 2-liter bottle

Gobble, Gobble!  Thanksgiving is a few short weeks away and I have come up with an easy (and cute!) turkey craft, which is made from a two-liter bottle.

What you'll need:

• Empty clear two-liter soda bottle
• Brown craft paint
• Orange glitter (optional)
• Red, orange, yellow, brown, white, black, and green construction paper
• Sand/pea gravel (optional --- used for weight)
• 3x5 un-lined index card (optional --- can use white construction paper or copy paper)

How I made this gobblicious turkey centerpiece...

1.  Take clear, clean two-liter bottle and squirt in enough brown paint until it covers the bottom of the two-liter bottle.  Dump in some glitter (optional) for a little sparkle.  Close lid tightly and shake until brown paint is evenly distributed.  Leave lid off to dry.

2.  Using the green, red, orange, and yellow construction paper, trace hands and cut them out.  You could do child sized hands and adult, or a mix of both.  I traced once and stacked the paper, cutting them all out at once in sheets of four.  In this model, I had eight (8) hands.

3.  Glue the hands together, overlapping, making an arc shape.  (To make it easier for little hands, consider cutting out a largish half circle and having them glue hands, fingers up, on the outside edges of the half-circle.)

4.  Turn bottle to the spot where you ripped off the label.  There's probably a white line there.  This is where you will glue the hands.

5.  To make the turkey's head, cut an egg shaped head using brown construction paper.  Glue eyes (googly if you have them) about half way down.  Cut the corner off from a piece of yellow construction paper for a triangular beak.  Cut the waddle out of scrap red paper.  Glue the waddle under the eyes, and then the beak on top of that. 

6.  Remove cap and fill with pea gravel or sand to provide weight.  If you plan to use this craft for a game of turkey bowling, omit this step.  Also, you will want to cover the likely odd colored cap, so cut a piece of brown construction paper an inch high by about 3 inches.  Glue this around bottle's cap to cover the colored cap.

7.  To make the turkey's hat, cut a hat shape out of black construction paper.  Using yellow scrap paper, cut out the buckle.  (I cut a small square, bent it slightly, and cut out the middle to make the buckle shape.)  Glue hat to turkey's head, and then head to the side of the lid.  The construction paper around the lid should give you enough surface area to glue the head on.

8.  To make the white collar, use white construction paper and cut a rectangle shape, about 5" x 4".  To make it slide around the neck (the capped area of the bottle), you will cut a slit up the middle of one side, then cut a round circle to allow it to fit around the neck of the bottle.  The white collar is great to cover up any sell-by dates printed on the bottle.

9.  Using scrap brown paper, cut out three-fingered turkey hands, leaving an inch for wrist/arm. 

10.  Cut a 3x5 card (or use a 3x5 if you have one).  Write a thankful message on the card such as "Thanks", "We give thanks" or somesuch.  Glue turkey fingers to card as shown.  Then glue turkey arms to bottle about mid-length of the bottle.


I think that about covers it!  I hope you enjoy the craft.  These would make awesome centerpieces with weight or bowling pins for a game of turkey bowling if you're hosting a party.  Use a full bottle of cola and dress it up to take to a family Thanksgiving dinner.

Please comment with questions.  I just threw this craft together for my husband's Cub Scout den.   For smaller children, save time and pre-assemble as much of the craft as you can.  I would allow a day or two to let the paint dry.