Give thanks for some quick and easy Thanksgiving crafts.
In between basting the turkey, making stuffing and baking pies, fit in a little creativity with quick and easy Thanksgiving crafts. With just a couple of inexpensive supplies from around your home or a quick trip to the craft or grocery store and a little bit of time, you’ll have handmade gifts and decorations to truly be thankful for.
Placemats
Give your best linens a break and create quick and simple Thanksgiving foam placemats. Craft foam sheets are available in just about every color, including Thanksgiving hues of brown, orange and yellow. Purchase enough sheets for each place at your table, plus additional sheets to cut up for designs. Trace the outline of your hand on brown foam to make a turkey shape and cut out one per each place setting. Glue each shape to the middle of a different colored foam sheet, which will serve as the base of a placemat. Decorate each turkey shape with markers. Cut and glue additional decorations to the placemats such as black pilgrim hats, Indian corn, husks and horns of plenty. Another option is to cut out the letters for each person’s name and glue each name to a placemat.
Sweet Seats
Combine a decorative craft with a take-home gift and you’ll knock out two tasks in one. Create mini-candy jar place markers for each member of your Thanksgiving dinner party by gathering Indian corn (the darker version of candy corn, usually sold right alongside the standard variety of the candy), small glass jars, glue, polyurethane and puffy-paint markers. Sprinkle a handful of the Indian corn on paper towels and spray with polyurethane; this coats the candy to prevent it from rotting or attracting bugs. Shake the towels a bit so the candy flips over and spray again. While the candy dries, decorate the candy jars with Thanksgiving sayings such as Give Thanks, Be Grateful or Happy Thanksgiving. Add each attendee’s name to one side of the jar. Fill the jars with uncoated Indian corn, then glue the polyurethane-coated candies to the jar’s lid. Place one jar at each person's assigned seat for dinner.
Giving Thanks Journal
If inspiration strikes over Thanksgiving, give yourself a place to write your thoughts and record what you’re grateful for with a quick and easy handmade journal. While journals are available in every shape and size from stores, making your own may be a better way to celebrate the Thanksgiving season. To create a journal, locate an unused school notebook (the spiral kind), some magazines, glitter glue, stickers, ribbons and other craft supplies you may have around your house. Flip through the magazine and cut out words, phrases or pictures you find inspiring or that make you feel thankful, and glue them to the notebook’s cover. Overlap the images, creating a collage, until the entire notebook is covered. For more Thanksgiving inspiration, you can print out pictures of turkeys, the Mayflower or pilgrims from your computer’s word processing clip art collection. Decorate the borders of the inside journal pages with the other craft supplies. Then write about what you're thankful for on the pages inside the notebook.
Tags: Indian corn, around your, craft supplies, each place, easy Thanksgiving crafts, jars with, other craft
