Handprint Turkey Placemats

Do you love to have a touch of homemade for your Thanksgiving table decor? I think you are going to love these handprint turkey placemats, and your kids will enjoy having their creations at the table on this great family holiday. Another craft idea that can help complete your Thanksgiving celebration is this turkey thankfulness box.

A friend of mine made up this craft last Thanksgiving and showed it to me after school one day. I loved it, and I decided to re-create it for my own kids this year. She was wonder room mom and actually made these at school with the kids in her daughter’s class last year so that they could all take them home for Thanksgiving. This would be a really fun Thanksgiving gift for your own kids or class to make for their parents or grandparents.

Materials Needed to Make Handprint Turkey Placemats

• Burlap
• Optional: Sewing Machine or Fray Check
• G-O-B-B-L-E stamp letters 1.5″ high (affiliate link added for your convenience)
• Paint Brush
• Red, Yellow, Brown, Black, Orange and White Craft Paint
• Scissors
• Pencil

Directions for Making Handprint Turkey Placemats

1. Cut burlap into a 17″ x 13″ rectangle.
2. To make placemat last longer and not come apart at the edges, sew around the edge or use fray check to seal in the edge. I cut the edges and then pulled a few strings out to give the frayed look.
3. Make sure you have a table protectant under your burlap piece.
4. Paint your letter stamps with brown paint. I started on the left hand side, adding the vertical letters.
5. Next, generously paint your child’s right hand red and do the red handprint a little more than an inch away from your letters and centered on the burlap (I didn’t do a great job of the centering from top to bottom). Do the brown handprint with their left hand next. The burlap absorbs the paint quickly, but wait a couple minutes before you do a right handed yellow handprint on top.
6. Paint your letter stamps again and do the G-O-B-B-L-E along the right hand side a little more than an inch from the handprints.
7. Finally, paint your black turkey body. Once dry, add white eyes, a red gobble, and orange legs and beak with paint by hand. I used the eraser on a pencil to stamp the white eyes in place. Once dry, add little black eye balls in the center of the white.

Have a happy homemade Thanksgiving. These are a keepsake, so you could also add their names and the year or replace the gobble, gobble with these pieces. I hope you have a lot of fun making these placemats and decorating your holiday table with them.