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6 Simple & Elegant Thanksgiving Crafts for the Whole Family

When the scenery around Steinbach looks painted with a warm palette of colours, we look forward to a cozy evening making Thanksgiving crafts. While the holiday embodies some of the most beautiful themes of the season, we’ve noticed that many of the most common Thanksgiving craft ideas aren’t always compatible with our interior decor. But, these simple and creative projects make it easy to create decor pieces that complement your style!

Pumpkin Vase

You may have seen variations on this genius craft all over Pinterest. What makes it so brilliant is how customizable it is to your tastes. You can choose to use craft pumpkins and silk flowers for a final piece that can grace your table year after year. Alternatively, you can substitute for real pumpkins and fill the vase with fresh, fall flowers, like vibrant chrysanthemums from our garden centre.

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You’ll Need: A pumpkin, flowers, and a sharp craft or pumpkin-carving knife.

Before you get started, choose a colour palette that suits your decor scheme. You can opt for a selection of warm, fall shades, with an orange pumpkin and flowers in tones of yellow, orange, and red. Or, you can choose a white pumpkin, which provides a neutral base for muted shades, like sage green, rose gold, beige, or ivory.

Simply cut off the top of the pumpkin, scoop out any insides (if using fresh), and arrange your floral bouquet inside.

 

Garland of Gratitude

We have a lot to be thankful for here in Steinbach: a great community, caring neighbours, great local businesses—the list goes on! If it’s important to you to emphasize gratitude this season, the Garland of Gratitude is one of our favourite thankful craft ideas. The garlands can be used to decorate your mantel, adorn an entryway, or surround a centrepiece. Best of all, they’re a great way to include everyone in your family—including less-crafty spouses!

You’ll Need: Cardboard, pencils, scissors, craft paper, pretty twine, and markers.

To start, create a stencil from cardboard in your preferred shape. Shapes that work best are “flag” shapes, like triangles, or you can opt to create stencils of every family member’s handprints by tracing and cutting them out. Then, trace the stencil onto craft paper, creating multiples of your stencils in two to three shades of paper.

Next, cut out your craft paper shapes and punch holes at the top of each shape where you’d like your twine to go.

Then, divide the shapes evenly among your family members and ask each family member to think of a list of things they are grateful for. Ask them to write “I am grateful for…” on each shape, completing the sentence with something from their list.

If your children are old enough to be trusted with permanent marker, metallic marker looks wonderful with this project. However, any marker or paint will do. The project looks best if the marker colour coordinates nicely with your choice of craft paper.

Tiny Hands & Feet Turkey

As far as Thanksgiving craft ideas for toddlers go, most of us look for projects that allow us to control mess and create something memorable without needing to keep their attention for too long. Not only are these the most adorable of any turkey craft ideas we’ve ever seen, they also make heart-warming, kid-friendly Thanksgiving decorations. 

You’ll Need: Newspaper, 2 sheets of white cardboard, baby wipes, a garbage bag, a picture frame, paper plates, googly eyes, yellow craft paper, glue, washable acrylic paint (in brown, orange, yellow, and red), and a warm bubble bath, ready to go!

Prepare by covering your bathroom floor with newspaper and running a warm bubble bath for your child. With a garbage bag at the ready, stack four paper plates and place them next to your bottles of paint.

In the bathroom with the door closed, sit with your child on the newspaper. Put some yellow acrylic paint on a paper plate, and get them to stamp the half of the cardboard with yellow handprints. Wipe their hands with the baby wipes, set the cardboard out of reach, discard the first paper plate in the garbage bag, and repeat with the orange paint while asking your child to stamp their hands overtop of the yellow prints. Repeat the process again with the red paint.

After wiping off their hands again, prepare the final plate with brown paint. Sit your toddler on the closed toilet seat and stamp their feet in the paint, then on the second sheet of white cardboard. Set the second sheet to dry, give their feet a wipe, and plop them in the bath to wash off the rest!

Once the paint is dry, you can cut out the foot imprints along with the overlapped hand prints. Choose the ones that turned out the best and assemble the turkeys. Make the turkey body with upside-down footprints, and glue it onto the handprint “feathers”. Also glue on googly eyes and make beaks with the craft paper. Then, frame your turkeys in an old picture frame and display for all your dinner guests!

 

Fall Tablescape

We love creative Thanksgiving art ideas that allow you to express your own style. Tablescapes are a perfect way to create the look you love using your favourite fall themes. You can combine other Thanksgiving crafts, like your pumpkin vase, into this one to create a beautiful vignette.

You’ll Need: Burlap table runner, fall-themed items (mini pumpkins, pinecones, acorns, ornamental corn cobs, etc), real or silk botanicals (eucalyptus, succulents, etc), candles and a tablecloth in coordinating colours.

Set the scene by dressing your table in the tablecloth and laying down the burlap runner down the centre, running lengthwise. Start your tablescape by placing your focal point. This is typically the largest item you plan to use. Place it in the centre of the table and start adding smaller items, grouping them as you like. If you’re unsure, try placing your items with the larger items nearest your centrepiece and place smaller and smaller items next to them.

Arrange candles along both sides of the arrangement, spacing them out evenly and symmetrically. Lastly, look at your tablescape from several feet away and rearrange until you’re happy with the finished look.

Fall Leaves Luminaries

This project is a beautiful way to preserve pretty fallen leaves or simply capture the fall leaf aesthetic. We love these Thanksgiving mason jar crafts for adding a touch of warmth to any surface, big or small!

You’ll Need: Clean mason jar, mod podge, a paintbrush, latex or rubber gloves, fall leaves (real or silk), and a candle.

Wear gloves throughout the project. Decide where on the mason jar you want to place your leaves before applying mod podge. When ready, use the paintbrush to apply a little bit of mod podge to the surface of the mason jar to adhere the leaves in place.

Next, coat the top of the leaf with mod podge to lacquer the leaves down and in place. Coat the entire exterior of the jar in mod podge so the texture is consistent—this will create a slight diffusing effect on the candlelight.

When dry, place an appropriately-sized candle in your mason jar. The candlelight will shine through the leaves and create a warm glow!

 

Autumn Wreath

One of our favourite handmade Thanksgiving decorations, autumn wreaths make a beautiful statement over your front door or perched overtop of your fireplace. These crafts can be created with both silk florals and fresh-cut flowers!

You’ll Need: Undecorated grapevine wreath, glue gun, craft wire, and your choice of botanicals (try silk mums, fall foliage, sunflowers, or mini-pumpkins).

Rough out your wreath by placing your botanicals around it before gluing or wiring down. If you’re unsure about placement, try choosing a focal point (normally the bottom centre) to place your most voluminous item. Cluster medium and small items around the focal point and evenly space the rest of your materials all around the wreath.

When you’re satisfied with the design, secure all items in place with hot glue and craft wire.

 

All of these Thanksgiving crafts can be modified to suit your taste, so we encourage you to experiment! If you love these fall looks, but don’t have time to achieve them on your own, we invite you to browse our home decor collection at our garden centre in Steinbach. Sometimes a little time saved gives us a lot to be thankful for!