Gobble, Gobble

The boys are excited for Christmas but I  didn't want them to overlook Thanksgiving.  They were studying Thanksgiving and pilgrims this week at school.  I thought what better way to get them in the spirit than with their own turkey shirts!! 

I'd like to say I came up with this cute little idea, but we know exactly where I got it.  Pinterest!!  The Artsy Fartsy Mama has a quick tutorial that gave me the basic idea.  I got myself to the store for supplies and got to work.

Here's what you'll need:

Brown tshirt
Felt in different colors
Paper
Scissors
Wonder Under
Iron
Sewing supplies

Iron your shirt flat.  I used a brown turtleneck because it was the only brown shirt I found ANYWHERE in their size.  I have this fear of turtlenecks from my childhood for some reason and didn't want to see my kids in them, but it worked out. Set your shirt aside for now.

Get your paper and sketch out a feather, triangle for beak, a gobbler and a big and little circle for eyes.  This is how mine looked.  You can see it wasn't a perfect science, but I ended up with shapes I thought would work well.

I cut my shapes out of my cardstock and traced them on to my felt.  You could use thin paper and pin to your felt, but I liked this method best with felt.  Cut out your shapes from your felt.  I had a red gobbler, white big eye, black little eye, yellow beak and red, orange, blue and green feathers.  

Follow the directions on your Wonder Under to attach it to your felt pieces.  Arrange your feathers to your liking and use one big piece of Wonder Under so that it's a unit and easier to attach.  

Using your iron, attach the face first.  I attached the white circles, beak and gobbler.  I didn't use Wonder Under for the black eyes. After the shirt cooled off from the iron, I sewed the black eyes on.  I didn't sew anything else down for two reasons.  1.  I do not like sewing on felt and didn't want it to look messy.  2.  They were only going to wear it a few times and I knew the Wonder Under would be strong enough of a bond that they wouldn't tear it up.  You can do it either way.  

Attach the feather unit to the shirt using the iron.  I did want to reinforce the feathers with a quick stitch around the edges.  You can see here how close to the edge I got.  I did this around each individual feather to give it a cohesive look.

Here's the finished product.  They turned out so cute and the boys loved them.  That's all that really matters!!

What fun Thanksgiving crafts have you done this year?