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Thanksgiving is almost here y’all and I love the colours of fall – the rich browns, deep mustards and sultry reds. They’re gorgeous! Winter hit record early this year and while hibernating in the comfort of my home this thought came to mind. Using a turkey place card as a non-traditional, fun way to embrace those gorgeous fall colours on the Thanksgiving dinner table.
I knew I wanted to cut out these turkey place cards on my Cricut Maker. I started by roughly sketching a very basic turkey (emphasis on basic) to give me an idea of the shapes needed. Let me just put it out there that I’m no artist. My son took a look at the sketch and decided his mum must be bananas because it looked nothing like a turkey! He proceeded to “enhance” it with legs and snoods (the red bits hanging off the turkey beaks). Only the snoods made it into the final version but he certainly felt pleased that he had contributed.
Using the free shapes in Cricut Design Space, and a couple hours of tweaking, this turkey place card was born. I think it is such a playful way to incorporate fall colours into Thanksgiving dinner and of course what better way to do that than with a turkey!??
I also made a Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) version of this turkey place card. It is slightly different from my Cricut design but for the most part looks the same.
Materials for Turkey Place Cards
- Turkey place card template
- Coloured cardstock in brown, yellow, red, pink, white and black
- All-purpose glue
- Tape glider
- Tweezer
- Name card or clip photo holders
Instructions for Turkey Place Cards
STEP 1: Download the template
Download my free Turkey Place Card cut file from the Craft Your Beautiful downloadables library. If you already have the password go straight to the library otherwise request the password for free by clicking the button below.
STEP 2: Cut out the template
Cut out your design on your die cutting machine or with a scissors. I used my Cricut Maker and cardstock I had lying around.
Tip: If your brown cardstock is flimsy cut the brown layer twice – once on a sturdy white cardstock and the other on the brown cardstock.
STEP 3: Gather Supplies
Gather all your supplies.
STEP 4: Assemble the brown feathers
Now we start assembly of the turkey place card. If your brown cardstock is flimsy and you followed the tip in Step 2, you will want to affix the brown cardstock piece to the white. I used my Scotch Advanced Glue Glider but only put glue on the edges of the white cardstock – leaving out the bottom edges. In this way I created a pocket so when the name card is inserted into the name card holder, the front of the name card is not obstructed. This just looks cleaner to me.
STEP 5: Affix red feathers
Apply, the Scotch adhesive to the back of the red cardstock and affix onto the brown cardstock. If you did not need to reinforce your brown cardstock, use the method in step 4 to affix the red cardstock and leave a pocket.
STEP 6: Attach turkey body
Next apply adhesive to the back of the yellow semi circle and affix on top the red cardstock.
STEP 7: Attach head of turkey
Perform the same with the yellow teardrop.
STEP 8: Assemble turkey eyes
Now you can assemble the eyes. I used a tweezer to make it easier to manipulate the small pieces. Put a tiny dot of glue on the black eyeballs and glued it to the white eyes. I used Aleene’s Turbo Tacky Glue as it reduces that annoying slip you can experience when you try to glue very small pieces together. Repeat for the other eye.
STEP 9: Affix turkey eyes
You can now affix the eyes to the turkey’s face.
STEP 10: Attach beak and snood
Use tiny dots of glue to affix the beak and snood.
STEP 11: Attach top hat
Using the Scotch adhesive, apply adhesive to the bottom of the hat and the tip of the feathers above the head. Position the hat on top the turkey head.
And there you have your completed turkey placecard. Create one for each dinner guest.
Did you make this turkey place card?
I’d love to hear and see how it turned out. Leave a comment below or tag @craftyourbeautiful on Instagram and include hashtag #craftyourbeautiful.
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