• Skip to secondary menu
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer
  • Home
  • About
    • Email Me
    • Disclosure & Copyright
  • Start Here
  • Subscribe
  • Privacy Policy
  • Books for Moms

Creative Family Fun

Your one-stop shop for kids activities and family fun

  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • Pinterest
  • Twitter
  • Spelling Activities
  • Family Fun
  • STEM
  • Movie Night
  • Toddler Activities
You are here: Home / Holidays / Thanksgiving / Cardboard Tube Turkey Craft

Cardboard Tube Turkey Craft

October 30, 2023 By Terri Thompson

Sharing is caring!

242 shares
  • Share
  • Tweet

Out of the dozens of cardboard tube crafts we’ve made over the years, we’ve never made a turkey. Go figure.

So, this was the year to correct things (and use of that supply of cardboard tubes we’ve accumulated) and make a cute and very colorful Cardboard Tube Turkey Craft.

Let’s grab some supplies and get crafting! And, once you’re done with your turkey, check out all of our Thanksgiving Crafts for Kids for more holiday fun with your kids.

Close up of a turkey craft for kids made out of a cardboard tube with googly eyes and a colorful tail.

Disclosure: There are Amazon Affiliate and other affiliate links in this article which means, at no additional cost to you, we could receive compensation for our recommendations. You can read our full disclosure policy on our Disclosure Page for more details.

Table of Contents

  • Supplies Needed:
  • How to make your Cardboard Tube Turkey Craft
  • You may also like one of these Thanksgiving activities for kids:
  • Fun Thanksgiving Books To Read With Your Craft
  • Recommended Resources for Thanksgiving Crafts

Supplies Needed:

2 empty cardboard tubes
Scissors
Red, orange, green, yellow, and brown craft paint
Glue
Googly Eyes
Scrap of yellow paper

Short cardboard tube painted brown and strips of cardboard painted green, yellow, orange, and red.

How to make your Cardboard Tube Turkey Craft

To start, we need to cut up our cardboard tubes. Cut one tube in half. We’ll only use one of the halves for our turkey, so set the extra half aside. If you’re making this craft with a group, precut the tubes in half to eliminate waste.

Cut the second cardboard tube lengthwise into four different sections.

Paint your half tube brown and your lengthwise sections in red, orange, yellow, and green.

Close up of a piece of cardboard tube painted red with fringes cut at the top

After your paint is dry, cut fringes in the top of each color section.

Then, cut each of the tail sections in half lengthwise. You’ll have eight different fringed pieces for your tail.

Cardboard pieces fanned out in a variety of Thanksgiving colors, red, orange, yellow, and green

Alternate the colors of your tail pieces and arrange your fringed section into a fan-shape just like in the photo above.

You’ll want it to be in the shape of a half circle.

In process photo of gluing the tail pieces together to show where to place the glue at the bottom of the fan shape.

Glue your tail pieces together. Start with the first piece, and use a quarter-size spot of glue to glue each piece down.

Glue piece by piece until you have your fan shape complete.

Hold tight for awhile to let the glue dry. Then, take a clothespin (or any type of clip) and clip the glued section to hold it tight while the glue dries. It can take awhile for the glue to dry since this is such a thick piece.

Note: If you would like to avoid the drying time, you can use a hot-glue gun for this project. It will dry a lot faster and you won’t need to use the clothespin as a clamp. If your kids are old enough to use a hot-glue gun, I would use this instead of the white glue to cut back on waiting times.

Close up of the body of your turkey, a half cardboard tube painted brown with two googly eyes and a small yellow triangle for the beak.

While you’re waiting for your tail to dry, complete the turkey’s face.

Glue two googly eyes to your brown painted cardboard tube. Then add a small triangle of yellow for the beak.

Finally, take your tail (which will be a bit heavy) and glue it to the back of your turkey. Use your clothespin to help hold the two pieces together until they dry. (Again, use your hot glue gun for this step to cut back on drying time.)

Once everything is dry, your super-cute and colorful turkey craft is ready for display.

Cardboard tube turkey craft for kids with a brown body and red, orange, yellow, and green tail feathers.

If you enjoyed this Cardboard Tube Turkey Craft, the above photo is perfect for sharing on Facebook or you can save the photo below on Pinterest.

Pinterest image showing the completed cardboard tube turkey and an in process image of the tail feathers with the words cardboard tube turkey in the middle

You may also like one of these Thanksgiving activities for kids:

Cardboard Tube Pilgrim Hat Craft

Turkey Suncatcher Craft

Fun Cranberry Activities for Kids

Sensory Bottle Turkeys at Fun-A-Day

Fun Thanksgiving Books To Read With Your Craft

The Night Before Thanksgiving by Natasha Wing

Bear Says Thanks by Karma Wilson

A Turkey for Thanksgiving by Eve Bunting

Cranberry Thanksgiving by Wende and Harry Devlin

How to Catch a Turkey by Adam Wallace

Recommended Resources for Thanksgiving Crafts

If you’re looking for easy crafts, I love the limited addition Thanksgiving Box from Green Kid Crafts. It comes with all the supplies and instructions you need to make some cute Thanksgiving Crafts. We’re big fans of Green Kid Crafts boxes. They’re fun, easy, and contain only natural and sustainable materials. And, if you’re not interested in their Thanksgiving Box, there are plenty of other art and STEM boxes (including a monthly subscription) to choose from.

Find the Thanksgiving Box here.

Check out all the other boxes here.

The following two tabs change content below.
  • Bio
  • Latest Posts

Terri Thompson

Terri is a writer and mom of two elementary-aged girls. She has a passion for learning and is always looking for ways to make learning fun. You can find her here writing about fun learning activities, art, craft, and family fun ideas.

Latest posts by Terri Thompson (see all)

  • Cardboard Tube Turkey Craft - October 30, 2023
  • Simple and Fun Shape Crafts for Toddlers - October 25, 2023
  • Thanksgiving Math Activities for Kids - November 10, 2022

Recent Posts

  • Cardboard Tube Turkey Craft
  • Simple and Fun Shape Crafts for Toddlers
  • Thanksgiving Math Activities for Kids
  • Paper Plate Tambourine Kids Craft
  • Outdoor Shape Activities for Kids

Primary Sidebar

Footer

Categories

Archives

Copyright © 2025 ยท Designed by The Blog Surgery

Creative Family Fun uses cookies to improve your experience. These cookies provide feedback to our analytics and advertisers. We use the information to track views of the site, where you go and to know if you are a regular visitor or brand new as well as provide a personalized experience where possible. We'll assume you're ok with this, but you can opt-out if you wish.Accept Reject Read More
Privacy & Cookies Policy

Privacy Overview

This website uses cookies to improve your experience while you navigate through the website. Out of these, the cookies that are categorized as necessary are stored on your browser as they are essential for the working of basic functionalities of the website. We also use third-party cookies that help us analyze and understand how you use this website. These cookies will be stored in your browser only with your consent. You also have the option to opt-out of these cookies. But opting out of some of these cookies may affect your browsing experience.
Necessary
Always Enabled
Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly. This category only includes cookies that ensures basic functionalities and security features of the website. These cookies do not store any personal information.
Non-necessary
Any cookies that may not be particularly necessary for the website to function and is used specifically to collect user personal data via analytics, ads, other embedded contents are termed as non-necessary cookies. It is mandatory to procure user consent prior to running these cookies on your website.
SAVE & ACCEPT
242 shares