Pine Cone Turkey Thanksgiving Place Cards

This is a fun craft you can do with your kids to get them ready for Thanksgiving. We are hosting the big dinner this year so we wanted to get the kids involved so that they would be proud to show off their work to the family. We collected the pinecones from our yard and I used my new Silhouette Portrait to make the feather place cards in this project.

I’ve never used a cutting machine so it took some practice and getting used to but I discovered the many options and crafts I can make so my project got even cuter! It went from just wanting to cut out some feathers for the pine cones to creating feathers made of washi tape, personalized names, and googly eyes. I couldn’t be happier though with how cute they are.

Here is what I used for this project.

Silhouette Portrait

Silhouette Washi Tape Sheets

Cardstock

Pinecones

Glue gun

Glue stick

Red and Orange felt

Googly eyes

Crayons

I used one of the preloaded designs that came with my Portrait for the feathers but there are thousands of options available on the Silhouette Design Studio. I started by cutting plain card stock into the feather shapes. I then cut the washi tape sheets into the same pattern. I could have saved myself some cutting if I only cut the washi sheets and then placed them onto the card stock and cut around them but it was my first time with the Portrait so I was doing some trial and error. 

Next, I made a smaller set of feathers that would have the names on them from plain card stock that we then colored with fall colored crayons. We colored them while still on the cutting mat but after the design was cut and it made a fun thicker layer of color around the cut edges. I choose a blocky font so that lots of the washi tape background would come through. Then, we glued the name feathers onto the bigger set of feathers. 

Cut the bottom off so that it curves around the pine cone.

Cut out a diamond shape into the orange (or yellow) felt for the beak and a gizzard out of the red felt. Use your glue gun to glue the felt and eyes onto the pine cone. I also placed some glue on the tail feathers so that they wouldn’t shift around too much. 

How cute are these?!

When I set the table for Thanksgiving I placed the pine cones on the plates and folded a cloth napkin in a standing accordion fold to make it look like a second set of feathers. It came out so great and everything loved them so much they brought their pine cones home with them!