Baby Food Jar Turkeys

I love Thanksgiving and all the food that comes with it, but it's often a holiday that has been overlooked as far as decorating and crafts in past years. Well, overlooked no longer! I was bound and determined to make some Thanksgiving crafts this year. How is that working out for me? Well, so far this is the only craft we've done and Thanksgiving is a week away. Oie, best laid plans right? In my defence I am getting ready for Thanksgiving and Bianca's upcoming baptism, while looking after two kids and running this blog. Don't make excuses, make a schedule! At least, that's what I tell myself....

I came across a picture of these cute little turkeys on Pinterest, and I knew I had a few baby food jars in the basement I'd been saving, so it was a perfect fit. It was also super quick and easy to do. In fact, we whipped these bad boys up in under an hour! Also, can we talk about why the plural version of turkey is turkeys and not turkies? Why do you taunt us English language, why!!!!!!!!

Baby Food Jar Turkeys
baby food jar
modge podge
foam paint brush
glitter (brown/orange/red/yellow)
googly eyes
construction paper (brown/orange/red/yellow)
hot glue/white glue

Apply a thin layer of modge podge to the inside of the baby food jar, making sure to cover the entire surface or you'll end up with a splotchy turkey. Pour a good amount of glitter into the jar and tightly seal the lid. Shake the jar so the glitter evenly covers the entire surface. Roman loved this part the most. If you have excess glitter inside the jar, you can pour it onto a creased piece of paper and pour it back into your glitter container.

For the turkey's tail feathers (shake your tail feather!), John traced Roman's hand onto three different colors of construction paper. You can have as many or as few handprints for your turkey's tail, but I think three is the minimum you'd want. Next, we cut them out and hot glued them onto the back of the turkey. **TIP- most jars will have a spot where glue from the label is stuck to the jar. Use this as the back of the jar as the handprints will cover it up. Lastly I cut out a beak and a gobble and hot glued them, along with the googly eyes, onto the front of the turkey. You could use white glue to attach the elements, but I don't have the patience to wait for it to dry.

Let the turkey sit with the lid of the jar off to allow the modge podge to completely dry, otherwise your turkey will forever have a white-cast, as though he applied a little too much sunscreen. If you aren't a fan of the color of your baby food jar's lid, you could totally give it a quick coat of paint to make it brown or red. I had planed on doing that, but the green didn't bother me as much as I thought it would.

 

These little turkeys are definitely a Pinterest win! I would have loved to make one turkey with Bianca's handprints, but let's be real, getting her to sit that long with her hand flat would be nearly impossible; maybe next year. I think these will be decorations that we look forward to setting out each year and watching how the size of the hands change over time. Not to mention that fact that we finally have Thanksgiving decorations! Mom win!