Turkey Place Cards

The inspiration for this project started in the early 1980's, otherwise known as our family prior to my existence. As the story has been repeatedly told to me, Jen and our mom were busy making place cards for Thanksgiving day. Jen was practicing her printing, and started to fill one out for our Aunt Edith May. She got the letters in May backwards and wrote "Edith Yam." There couldn't have been a better spelling mistake for this holiday, and although she corrected the place card, Edith May will forever be known lovingly as Edith Yam.

As I was helping our mom with the Thanksgiving decorations this year, she pulled out the set of place cards and I was slightly offended not to find one with my name on it. I decided to dismantle one of the originals so I could make a new set more inclusive of all the members of our family.

I traced the turkey body outline and beak, and cut out the shapes by hand. I used my Silhouette to speed up the process for the feathers and wattle.

The template for the turkey can be downloaded here.

My regular glue stick wasn't tough enough for the feathers so I ended up using my hot glue gun.

To make the pipe cleaner feet, I cut pieces about 2 inches long. I placed one pipe cleaner across the other (like a plus sign), then twisted multiple times until secure. If the three strips were significantly uneven, I just trimmed them with scissors.

I used my hot glue gun to attach the feet to the turkey, and then again to attach the turkey to the card.

All of my turkeys turned out a little bit different from one other. There are endless possibilities with turkey feather colors and patterns.

What I look forward to most each Thanksgiving is watching the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade (yes I love each and every marching band), and helping my mom make rolls. Happy almost Turkey day!