How to Make a Thankful Turkey with a Coffee Can

In this post, I will be showing you How to Make a Thankful Turkey with a Coffee Can.

If you’re wanting to teach your child about gratitude this Thanksgiving season, this craft is a fun way to really concentrate on being thankful.

Of course gratitude is something we want our children to learn and experience everyday, but Thanksgiving is the time of year where we really focus on being thankful for all the blessings in our lives.

This activity can be done for the 30 days of November or just the day of Thanksgiving when sitting around the table; the important thing is to reflect on the blessings in our lives.

I will be showing you How to Make a Thankful Turkey with a Coffee Can.

I was talking with my daughters about how Thanksgiving was coming up soon, when all of a sudden I had a light bulb moment.

Why not repurpose one of my many empty coffee cans into a turkey that held all the things we are thankful for?!

This coffee can turkey was such a quick and easy project, and I wanted to share it with you all!

Repurposed Coffee Can into Thanksgiving Turkey Blessings Holder

The supplies I used to make this:

-Empty coffee can with lid

-Cardstock

-Homemade Chalky Finish Brown Paint (recipe here)

-Wax or Clear Coat Spray (optional)

-Scissors

-School Glue

-Hot glue gun

-Black Marker

*Read manufacturer’s labels and exercise caution when using DIY supplies and tools.

To start off I got an empty coffee can and lid, easy enough right?

I had some of these strips of cardstock that I bought for another project, but never used.

I got them at Hobby Lobby when they were 50% off.

Bigger sheets of cardstock will work too, this is just what I had on hand.

I pulled out the red, orange and yellow colors from the packet to make feathers.

First I cut one feather out of the cardstock and used that to be my template to make 10 more feathers.

I folded all the feathers in half, lengthwise.

Then I cut little fringes in them to give them more texture.

The feathers measure approximately 8 3/4″ in length.

Meanwhile, I had given the coffee can two coats of chalky finish brown paint.

I ended up sealing it with finishing wax, but clear coat spray would probably work as well.

All the feathers were hot glued onto the back of the can.

I cut out cardstock to make the eyes, beak and snood.

School glue was used to attach the black piece of the eye to the white piece of the eye, and the snood to the beak.

I then hot glued the eyes and beak parts onto the can.

A hole was cut out of the coffee can lid with scissors and “I’m thankful for…” was written on the lid with a Sharpie marker.

Here is the little turkey all put together:

I used extra pieces of the cardstock to cut out little cards to write all the things we’re thankful for, (of course we’ll need more than this).

The plan is to have each member of my little family write one thing that we’re thankful for every day in November, and then at the end of November take them out and read them.

However, this activity doesn’t have to be done every day; it can be done on Thanksgiving when relatives are arriving you could have them write down something they’re thankful for and then take out the cards and read them around the table.