Cardboard Tube and Coffee Filter Turkey Craft

My kids and I love crafts made from toilet paper rolls and we love making coffee filter art, so we combined the two to make this cute Thanksgiving turkey craft.

Start by painting the empty cardboard tubes with brown paint (or if you are my four year old daughter decide a pink turkey is more festive). Make sure you paint the toilet paper rolls and let them dry before you cut them or they won't hold up as well.

While your cardboard tubes are drying, use washable markers to color a coffee filter. This will be your turkey's feathers so make them colorful. Lightly mist the coffee filters with water so the colors run together and allow them to dry.

Cut a slit into each side of the toilet paper roll about 3/4 of the way down. (I did this part.) Cut a turkey head shape out of one side but make sure you leave the bottom part of the slit intact so that it will hold your coffee filter feathers.

Decorate your turkey head with google eyes and bits of construction paper or craft foam. Then fold your colorful coffee filter not quite in half, scrunch it up a little, and insert into the cardboard tube.

Here's the pink version:

And my son made a turkey dog:

But then he decided there's no such thing as a turkey dog and changed the head so it's just a regular dog.

Don't forget to read some turkey books to your new turkey friends:

Turkey Trouble by Wendi Silvano - This fun and silly book is about Turkey who tries to disguise himself as other animals to keep himself off the Thanksgiving table.

Run, Turkey, Run! by Diane Mayr - Thanksgiving is only a day away. Can Turkey find a place to hide from the farmer searching for a plump bird for his feast? If the farmer doesn’t fall for his tricks, there’s only one think left to do . . . run, Turkey, run!

The Best Thanksgiving Ever! by Teddy Slater - A sweet story about the importance of family, being thankful, and love--as told by a family of turkeys, with a hilarious surprise at the end!