A friend of mine likes to run a program every Thanksgiving for local moms. For a few dollars, she supplies everything you need to make the world’s most adorable turkey trivets. This handprint/footprint craft can be altered to work with a child of any age which is very handy, especially when you have more than one kid!

I have had the pleasure of making this craft twice now and I hope she can find the time in her schedule to do it again this year. These are easy to make at home but part of the enjoyment for me is getting together with a group of my mom-friends. We catch up and help each other avoid getting paint on everyone’s clothes! An extra set of hands goes a long way with this craft.

What You’ll Need

• a ceramic tile for each child – these can be picked up pretty cheap at a local reuse store or home improvement store; you might even have a few spares stored in your basement somewhere!
• felt pads or sheet of felt to protect the back from scratching your table – use adhesive pads or simply use some glue
• acrylic or craft paint in brown, red, orange, green and yellow
• paintbrushes
• clear sealant spray – can be found at any local craft store
• permanent markers to write name & year; also, to add a face to your turkey!

How-To

Start by adhering your felt to the back of the tile. You can use adhesive felt pads or simply use some glue and attach a sheet of felt to the back.

 

Once that’s complete, it’s time to paint! There are a couple of variations you can do:

• Child’s handprint: This is best for ages 2 and up when they are old enough to keep their hands open for you to paint
• Child’s footprint + Mom’s fingers: This is best for under age 2 and easily completed with a child strapped into a stroller or high chair.

To do the child’s handprint, paint the palm & thumb brown then paint each finger a different colour (I like red, yellow, green and orange). Once painted, place their hand onto the tile.

To do the footprint turkey, start by painting your own fingers a rainbow of colours. Now, my images don’t demonstrate very well how awesome this can truly look. I have really long fingers and generally huge hands. This works better when you have dainty, lady-like hands. What is most important is to keep the fingers very close together when pressing them onto the top half of the tile – as you can see, I clearly didn’t do that!

Once your turkey tail is complete, it’s time to add the body. Paint baby’s foot brown and press onto the trivet with the toes pointing down/heel near the finger “feathers”.

Once the paint has dried, it’s time to seal the trivets. I cannot stress this enough: Make sure your paint is DRY. If you do not, everything will run. Don’t buy the cheap sealant – spend the money on the brand name stuff. It is definitely not cheap which is why this is a great craft to do with a group of people who share the cost.

When the sealant has dried, use the permanent makers to add any features you like! You can add a beak, wattle (the dangy thing on their neck), eyes, legs, etc. It’s also a great idea to put their name and the year on there so you’ll always know exactly when their hands or feet were that tiny. I suggest doing the marker after the sealant as quite often the marker will run.

Now your adorable turkey trivet is complete! I use mine for display purposes during the holidays. I don’t want to risk damaging it in any way because they’re just so darn cute! Gobble gobble!