We know, we know, it's beginning to look a lot like December out there already, what with Hanukkah fast approaching and Christmas countdowns waiting in the wings—but we love Thanksgiving here at WCS and wanted to feature a few more inspired ideas you can tackle before Thanksgiving Day from some of our favorite creatives on the internet (and a few home-grown ideas, too). Today, WCS members Monika Wright and Elizabeth Dillow share a few ideas and some free downloads that can be used to share thankfulness with family and friends who won't be at your Thanksgiving table this year!
With Thanksgiving just around the corner, and Christmas standing noisily in line behind, the kids will be home on school break. And we'll be scratching our heads wondering what we're going to do to keep them busy.
I'm lucky enough to have my in-laws (who live up the driveway from us) and my Mom and brother (who live 20 minutes away) close by. It's not always been this way, so we often mailed art projects and notes and letters to our friends and family far away.
That's my little Spunky. She's our hand model today as we show you how to make your own handprint turkey, just in time to send out to family and friends who might not be able to make it to the get-together this year. You might even want to share this idea with your child's teacher at school for a fun art project.
I suggest printing this free download on a smooth, heavyweight cardstock.
Next, we'll pull out one of Mommy's old t-shirts (aka our painting shirt) because this might get a little messy. I opted to make this a two-step process with Victoria, but with an older child it could easily be accomplished in one step.
We're going to make a handprint turkey. To make the turkey, paint the bottom half of the hand and thumb with brown paint (this will be the body and neck of the turkey). Then paint the fingers with red, yellow or orange paint. Make them different colors or alternate two colors as we did. Using markers, draw the legs (brown), beak (orange), waddle (red) and eyes and eyelashes (black).
If painting is really not an option in your house, print this download on an 8.5x11 piece of cardstock or matte photo paper. After trimming, you will have a card that can be folded and mailed. You can close the notecard by cutting out the label provided and attach with your favorite adhesive.
Download your free card template here or here.
The digital papers and die cut elements are from a variety of kits by Crystal Wilkerson. I used this font from Kevin and Amanda inside the die cut shapes. There are faint lines just above the return address label and just below the round label to use as score lines for folding.
Here's what I came up with:
I chose to add a photo (just had to trim 1" from the side of a standard 4x6 photo) to send to my dear friend. One could also have the kidlets draw a picture or even have them write a short note.
You can see that I fussy cut around the 'thinking of you' die cut shape and used it as a closure for my mailer. I rounded all the corners and also added yet another die cut shape to the bottom portion inside the mailer.
Elizabeth made a quick and easy postcard that you can download here. The blank side can be used for children's artwork and the back for a Thanksgiving message written by a child (or with help from the grownup!) Everyone you know coming to Thanksgiving? It's a good bet that a handful of these art projects and Thanksgiving cards would be very welcome at your local nursing home.
Time to get your printers revved up and start those downloading engines!
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1. Thanksgiving is a week away.
2. If you sent some Thanksgiving mail by Saturday, it would most likely arrive at its destination in time.
3. No stamps and no time to make it to the post office? You know you'll be driving back and forth from the grocery store approximately 19 times between now and Thanksgiving anyway, and chances are you can buy stamps at your grocery check-out, so just go for it! The end.
