The DIY turkey game for Thanksgiving!

A couple days ago I got an idea (click to see the original) that I "pinned" of course, but it was so cute I had to do it right away! Most of the Thanksgiving project ideas that I've gotten haven't looked this good. I think it's just what it's made out of and how it looks permanent. You CAN do this exact idea and game using drawings on paper plates or clip art or something, but I wanted to make it nice so that I can have it for years down the road too. I'll show you what I did to give you ideas (and of course, click on the original pin to see where I got this idea.) The tin was from the Dollar Tree and was juuuuust big enough to hold all the game pieces!
Let me explain the game first before I tell you how I made it. The object of the game is to get all six colored "feathers" clipped onto your turkey. You do that by rolling a wooden block with a different color on each side. I added the second dice to the game. It has a target painted on three sides and the other three sides of the block are blank. There is only one target clothespin so that gets traded around pretty quickly. The girls liked getting the target so much that we decided that you have to get all the colors AND have the target to win the game. (You could change that and make it so that you CAN'T win with all the colors unless you don't have the target.) The hill billy version is that everyone who wins (with all six feathers and the target) is then "out" of the game till all the players have won (been shot) and by then, Thanksgiving dinner will probably be ready and you can all go eat your turkey. Morbid or realistic? Depends on if you are vegetarian or not. ;] Oh, and when someone wins they are supposed to say "gobble, gobble, gobble!" Which cracks me up because the game is meant to be played while everyone is waiting to GOBBLE the turkey up (that is cooking in the oven of course.)
Cutest game ever? Right now I think it is. Just know that this adorable little "baby turkey" (as my girls called it) is NOT how they look in real life!
Right, so.. here are the pieces that you can cut out of felt (or paper or whatever) yourself!
The two blocks were just wooden blocks from the girls set that they don't play with much anymore. I used mod podge to do the colored dice. A home made version of mod podge can be found by following THESE links and I painted the targets with fingernail polish.
The original pattern for this game was to mod podge the clothes pins as well, but I didn't want to cut out 42 pieces of paper to do it! (My game has seven turkeys in it!) So I used just kids craft paint to paint them all --7 of each color-- red, orange, yellow, green, blue, and purple. After the paint was dry I went over them again with sparkly fingernail polish to help seal it.
There is only one "target" clothespin. You could make the target bigger on it, but I was afraid it would get bent up if I made it too big. You can use sturdy cardboard for the round target and glue it on top of the clothespin.
I stuffed the turkeys with plastic grocery bags that I just cut up., and I glued on the pieces with Tacky glue (love that stuff!) .. I decided to hand sew around them while I stuffed them instead of machine sewing just because it was more convenient to do here and there throughout the day. You could just glue the front and back together though of course or do a less fancy hand stitching than the blanket stitch that I did, or use a machine. Hey, it's all about the look you are going for. Looking back I think I might have machine stitched it, but I do like the texture of the blanket stitch on it.. so.. oh well.. it just took a little extra time.
The girls and I tested out the game and they gave it two really big thumbs up! The target was a big hit and it was cracking me up how everyone decided to place the "feathers" on their bird.
Of course, this game is great for helping with fine motor skills and color matching and awareness for little ones.
The ultimate winner! Six feathers and a target right between the eyes. ;]

I had fun making each turkey just a little different from each other. The original game only had the head of the turkey, and when I showed the picture of the "pin" to Renna (my 3 year old) said she wanted to put the feathers "On the turkey's bum bum, NOT the head! That's silly!" haha, right. So I had to add the body part and just for fun made them each unique.

Well, there you go. Hopefully that will give you some good ideas to make your own "Gobble, gobble, gobble!" game.