Thanksgiving Decorating Tips
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Go on a nature walk with your kids and collect items like colored leaves, acorns, and pine cones. Place in a basket and use as a centerpiece or a table decoration
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Using a heavy-duty needle and thread, create a holiday garland by stringing dried apples
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Place fall colored soaps and decorative hand towels in your bathroom
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Create a fall scent by boiling a little water and adding spices like cinnamon, nutmeg, and cloves.
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Hollow out the center of a pumpkin or squash and use as a serving bowl for items like relishes and dips
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Make a holiday wreath: Buy an inexpensive grapevine wreath and hot-glue fall items to it such as pine cones, tiny gourds, Indian corn, acorns, etc. Top it off with a fall colored bow.
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Shop thrift stores for wicker baskets. First clean the baskets with hot, soapy water. After they are dry, you can spray paint in a fall color like rust, brown, or dark green. Decorate with raffia, fall-colored ribbons, etc. You can also use a hot glue gun to attach Indian corn. Use the matching baskets to hold napkins and silverware, or use as serving pieces for rolls at your Thanksgiving table.
Thanksgiving Money Saving Tips
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Watch your grocery ad for the best price on turkey. Many stores offer huge discounts on turkeys in early November.
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Shop bakery outlets for dinner rolls
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Use day-old bread to make your own stuffing. Dry the bread on a countertop for a few days. Once it is dried, you can break into pieces or cube to make stuffing.
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If you are hosting a family meal, don't be afraid to ask your guest to bring a particular dish to pass
Thanksgiving Craft Ideas from our Readers
Thanksgiving Mobile:
Collect birch sticks and then have
cut outs ready with
holes punched in them so the kids can string them, we did corn cobs,
pilgrims, Indians, canoe, leaf, turkey, etc.....the cutouts are just
construction paper or you could use die - cuts too.....this was neat for our
3-5 yr old preschoolers.
Corn Cob Pictures:
Kids can decorate a printed picture
of a corn cob by
gluing real popcorn kernels unto the page, just paste it on a thicker type
paper, why not try "popped" corn too...., then add some
"silk" with whatever
you have lying around such as old embroidery thread
Turkey Feet:
Paint the bottom of child's foot with
fall colors,
individual colors on toes; let them print it on paper, viola, after you draw
on an eye, feet, and gobbler you have a footprinted turkey keepsake!
Tortilla Teepee:
Cut large flour tortilla in half and
let kids paint and
decorate with food colored water and brushes, stand and shape into teepee,
add some stick pretzels at the top with some spread peanut butter on the
inside to hold them on
Thanks to Deb for the great ideas listed above!
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I just had this idea for turkeys that the girls and I are going to do for
crafts this month. We haven't tried it yet, but I think they'll turn out really
cute. I'm going to the craft store to get some styrofoam balls (a big one for
the body, a smaller one for the head), different sized colored feathers, red
felt, googley eyes, and raffia (is that what that stuff is called, the curly
straw-like material?). We're going to paint the balls brown, then glue the head
to the body (cutting off a bit before painting so part of the balls are flat so
they fit together). Then we'll glue the googley eyes on, and cut out some red
felt for the wattle (or maybe red pom-poms would look good). I thought for the
beak, a couple of pistachio shells would be perfect! Then we'll poke in the
feathers for the tail and wings, and set the turkey down on a raffia
"nest." My husband gets paid next week, and I can't wait to get
started on it! I just drew a sketch, it looks more like a turkey when the head
ball is 1/3 the size of the body, and placed close to the top of the body.
Thanks to Kristin for sharing this idea!
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One of my fondest Thanksgiving memories from when I was a child was
the centerpiece my grandma used to always have. Grandma had 8 kids and
so she was always into simplicity and stuff you could make ahead. Her
centerpiece which was quite large but could be adjusted to fit your
table.
She had a turkey head she made out of red felt, it was stuffed with
cotton and had a sturdy wooden stick up through the middle of it that
extended from the bottom a few inches. She had taken golden felt to
fashion a beak and white and black to make eyes that were glued to each
side. It was nothing fancy but I'm sure you could make it more elaborate
if that is your style.
Using the stick she would insert the stuffed turkey head into the end of
a fresh pineapple that she laid on it's side on a big platter. The
pineapple made the body and the leaves made the turkey tail. She would
surround the Pineapple Turkey with red and green grapes that she had
"frosted" by dipping them in a sugar mixture. (does anyone have a
recipe
for this type of thing?)
It was always lovely and very dramatic, but especially appealing to kids.
It was fun to eat the sugar coated grapes while waiting anxiously for
dinner to be served.
One year she made special turkey napkin rings to match. She used felt,
little pompons and wiggly eyes to makes little turkeys that were glued to
a ring of felt that a napkin could be inserted into. It was a fun
project for the kids and gave us a souvenir to take home.
Thanks to Amy in Texas for sharing her Thanksgiving memories with us!