Talking Turkey

Guest writer Robin Weiss here! Our family loves a good challenge! When we saw the amazing pumpkins and Jack-o-lanterns that we could make after attending the Taste of USA in Kentucky, we figured we could turn it into something else. After much thought and discussion with my helpful designers (age range 4-9) we finally had a plan! Here is how you can construct your very own turkey!

Using blown up and tied water balloons, take a mixture of flour and water to create a paste that will help adhere strips of newsprint to your balloon. This is the first step. The flour and water should be mixed together until it is about the consistency of regular glue. Dip the newsprint, preferably the non printed variety, into the flour and water and begin making layers over your balloon. The more layers you do, the longer it will take to dry and the sturdier it will be. We let ours dry overnight, but it would have probably been ready in about two hours.Gather your supplies for the making of the turkey. You will need: brown tissue paper, scissors, yellow and red felt, a brown fuzz ball, construction paper in various colors, pen/pencil, wiggly eyes, glue dots, foam brush, modge podge and orange foam.

Using the scissors cut the tissue paper into small parts. Begin gluing using the foam brush and modge podge. The more layers, the darker the color. For a more realistic look, try to overlap and vary how you lay the tissue paper on your turkey body. Let this dry as you prepare the turkey head.
We used glue dots to attach the wiggly eyes of our turkey. You need to be sure to place them far enough apart that you can still fit the turkey nose. For the beak/nose, we cut a small square out of the yellow felt. Bending the back edges together, allowing the front to form a beak, we used one glue dot to hold the edges together and one glue dot to adhere the beak to the turkey's face. Then we cut out a red squiggle for the neck of the turkey.

The hard part was deciding how we were going to adhere the head of the turkey. Our original plan was to use popsicle sticks to attach the head we'd just made. Though our sticks were too short or our turkey was too tall to make this work. The shape of the balloon had actually given us a rather small opening, so we were able to cover the opening and rest the head just on top of the turkey. You are still able to fill it with goodies.

For the feathers we traced a hand and cut out two handprints of three colors for a total of six feathers. These were attached to the body of the turkey with the glue dots. The base was actually a piece of orange foam, cut to resemble turkey feet as best we could manage. As we were doing the tissue paper, we had flattened the base of the balloon just slightly while it was damp to allow the turkey to stand up.

To use your turkey as a name badge holder, you can simply attach name cards with glue dots at every seat. You could also use chenille sticks to create "arms" and place different gratitudes that can be changed out. We are so thrilled with our turkey and can't wait for him to be the centerpiece next week at dinner!

I can't see what else you have made with your original designs!

Signing off until tomorrow...