Tissue Paper Turkey

My Wednesday night class of 3rd and 4th graders have started working to earn their craft badges, so last week I put together a Thanksgiving craft for them. After a little online search for ideas, I landed on two similar turkey crafts from Family Fun. I liked parts of both, and disliked parts of both, so I combined the two to make my own.

We turned our craft into a ministry project and gave our creations to our church to use for table decorations for the Thanksgiving potluck lunch.

To make one of these adorable turkeys, you will need brown,
red, yellow, and orange tissue paper, paper clips, brown and red
pipe cleaner, googly eyes, yellow craft foam (or construction
paper), and 2" pom poms (brown or tan color).

To make the tail, cut and stack 8 sheets of tissue paper as follows:

• 2 red - 20 x 13 inches
• 2 orange - 20 x 11-1/2 inches
• 2 yellow - 20 x 10 inches
• 2 brown - 20 x 8-1/2 inches

Stack them with red on the bottom, then orange centered on the red,
yellow centered on the orange, and brown centered on the yellow.

Fold accordion style creating a strip about 1-1/4 inches wide
and secure with a brown pipe cleaner, making sure the pipe
cleaner is centered along the strip.

Bring up the ends as shown and connect them with a
paper clip or two and set aside.

It's time to make the body. Cut and stack 13 sheets of tissue paper as follows... and this is where my instructions begin to differ from the idea I was following, mostly because theirs didn't look right, so I fixed it:

• 2 brown - 10 x 18 inches
• 3 orange - 10 x 13 inches
• 3 red - 10 x 13 inches
• 3 orange - 10 x 13 inches
• 2 brown - 10 x 13 inches

Stack them with the larger brown on the bottom and the
others stacked in order and centered on top.

Fold accordion style creating another strip about 1-1/4 inches wide
and secure with a brown pipe cleaner, making sure the pipe
cleaner is centered along the strip.

Begin to gently pull apart and separate each individual sheet
on one side of the piper cleaner.

Repeat the process on the other side. The longer pieces of brown
will be the bottom of the turkey body.

While the accordion folding was difficult for my class to master, this next part was by far the most difficult for them, well all of us... creating a neck. Probably because the instructions I was trying to follow were unclear and I was flying blind and making things up by this point.

View from the bottom - using the piper cleaners that are securing
the tail and body, attach the two together, twisting the pipe cleaners
and pulling the tail close to the body, while aiming the pipe cleaners
away from the tail in the direction of a neck.

While I was attaching the tail to the body and forming the neck,
I grafted in a 3rd pipe cleaner to help with the formation of the neck.
I folded it in half first, and began twisting the ends into
the other pipe cleaners, leaving a loop at the end.

Glue the pom pom to the loop for the turkey head. Cut a small
triangle from the yellow foam or construction paper and glue
it on the pom pom for a beak. Add googly eyes. Cut a small
piece of the red pipe cleaner and form into a snood.

Once everything is put together and glue is dry, fluff the tissue papers on the body as needed.

A couple of finished turkeys.

More finished turkeys.

More finished turkeys.

Our turkeys were beautiful table decorations today at the church potluck, and the kids were proud to display their handiwork.





Give thanks to the LORD, for He is good; His love endures forever. Psalm 107:1