Pine Cone Turkey: Thanksgiving Nature Craft for Kids

Take Natures best craft supply and turn it into a Thanksgiving craft with this fun and easy Pine Cone Turkey. The kids will just love making this feathered Turkey. Gobble, Gobble!

I don’t know about you, but I am a Pine.Cone.Fanatic. With the Holidays fast approaching, now it’s there time to shine, and this Pine Cone Turkey is the perfect kids craft to kick off the Pine Cone Crafting season! But who am I kidding, it’s always Pine Cone Crafting season in this house, so make sure to check out all of our other fun Pine Cone crafts.

We went a little Turkey Crafting Crazy now that Halloween is over and came up with a Clothespin Turkey and cute Toilet Paper Roll Turkey windsock too! *Tutorials coming soon

The kiddos will love sticking the feathers into the Turkey’s Pine Cone “Butt”, they’re just such a fun supply to craft with. Just watch out if you have a pet cat! Our cat, Melo, was going #CatCrazy! He was frantically hopping from the table to the floor, trying to get his paws on any feather that he could. Needless to say, it made for an extra fun Pine Cone Turkey crafting sesh!

If you craft with pine cones (collected from nature) as much as we do, than I don’t have to tell you that you MUST clean and prepare them first before crafting. But if you’re new to Mother Natures little craft supply, than make sure you read this post first, so that your Pine Cones are clean and ready, and you’ve baked all the bugs out.

Now that your Pine Cones are cleaned and prepared, let’s turn it into a Thanksgiving Turkey!

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Supplies Needed to Make a Pine Cone Turkey for Thanksgiving

Craft supplies to make a pine cone turkey. Red, yellow orange felt, feathers, googly eyes, brown paint, orange pipe cleaner, pine cone.

Pine Cone – Cleaned and prepared or store bought
Brown paint (optional)
Googly eyes
Felt – Yellow and red (you could also use construction paper)
Colored feathers
Orange pipe cleaners
Orange craft pom pom
Glue

How to make a Thanksgiving Turkey out of Pine Cone

Follow the below easy steps to turn your Pine Cone into an adorable Turkey with feathers for Thanksgiving!

Before you get started crafting your Pine Cone Turkey, make sure you clean and prepare them first if you collected them from nature. If you have store bought pine cones, you can skip this step.

First, paint the pine cone all brown and allow to dry completely. You could totally skip this step since a pine cone is technically already brown. My kiddos love to paint so we decided to paint it anyway!

Cut a yellow triangle out of felt to make a beak, and cut a red oblong piece out of felt to make the Snood (did you know it was called that?!)

Glue some feathers in the back (large/wider) part of the pine cone. We just kind of stuck them down into the crevices, until it looked nice and full. Some of the feathers may have even stayed put without the glue, but I’d use it just in case anyway.

Take an orange pipe cleaner, and fold it in half. Secure one end to the front (smaller/thinner) part of the pine cone by twisting it around one of the scales of the pine cone that is sticking out the top. Bend it into the shape of a Turkey neck with a little “hook” on the end where the Turkey’s head would be.

Orange pipe cleaner bent in the shape of a turkey neck, connected to the end of the brown painted pine cone.

Glue a small orange pom pom under the “hooked” end of the pipe cleaner.

Pine cone with feathers glued into the back sticking out. Orange pipe cleaner neck with an orange craft pom pom head.

Glue on the googly eyes, yellow beak, and red snood to make the Turkey’s face.

Pine Cone Turkey Thanksgiving Nature Craft for Kids. Brown painted pine cone with feathers sticking out the back.

Next, cut an orange pipe cleaner in half. Take one of the halves and bend the end into a zig zag shape to look like the Turkeys claw.

Half of an orange pipe cleaner bent in a zig zag at one end to make a turkey claw.

Glue the Turkey legs to the underside of the Pine Cone Turkeys belly.

How adorable is this Pine Cone Turkey? This is such a fun and simple craft you can do with the kiddos in preparation for Thanksgiving which is just around the corner.