Easy Turkey Suncatcher Craft Perfect For Thanksgiving

This adorable, colorful turkey suncatcher craft makes a fun and easy addition to your holiday plans! These Thanksgiving suncatchers will look amazing hanging in your windows!

Calling all families who love making homemade decorations – specifically colorful suncatcher crafts! These adorable turkey suncatchers use colored tissue paper squares as the turkey feathers to create vibrant Thanksgiving decorations that you can display proudly for the Thanksgiving holiday!

Although this fun-filled turkey craft for preschoolers is designed for younger crafters, older kids will love making them and seeing them hung up as part of your Thanksgiving decorations.

Why You’ll Love This Turkey Suncatcher Craft Project

• Improves fine motor skills through cutting tissue paper squares and layering the pieces.
• Great for young children, but kids of all ages will love making it!
• You can keep and reuse these cute turkeys!
• The final product is fun to display with your other holiday decorations.
• It takes 20 – 30 minutes to make this cute Thanksgiving craft, making it the perfect length!

Supplies Needed

You only need a few simple supplies to make these cute tissue paper turkey suncatchers!

• Tissue paper – I used yellow, pink, and blue to make this craft light and fun. But you could definitely stick with traditional Thanksgiving colors like orange, yellow, and red.
• Cardstock or cardboard – this provides the outer frame of the turkey. Cardstock will work, but cardboard is even better.
• Scissors – If you are making this craft with younger children, consider cutting out the pieces yourself (for toddlers) or letting preschoolers use safety scissors.
• Tape – Use this to attach all the tissue paper pieces for this craft.
• Glue stick
• Pencil – Any writing utensil will work, but I prefer using a pencil in case I make mistakes.
• Turkey template – Print out this turkey template to make this an easy project. If you don’t have a printer, you can freehand it!

How To Make A Turkey Suncatcher

1. Make the turkey template – Download and print the turkey suncatcher template (I recommend printing it on cardstock), then carefully cut it out.
2. Make the turkey frame for your suncatcher – Put the turkey template on top of a piece of brown construction paper and trace the inside and outside of the outline. Then use scissors to cut out the traced turkey and set it aside.
3. Cut tissue paper squares – Grab your tissue paper and cut it into 2-inch squares.
4. Attach tissue paper squares – Put tape across the back of the turkey body, flip it over, and layer on the tissue paper squares.
5. Make the turkey’s face – Use the craft template to cut out the pieces for the face out of the appropriate colored paper. Next, glue the eyes, beak, and wattle onto the face of the turkey.

Place the finished suncatcher in a door or window that gets lots of light and enjoy your colorful creation!

Turkey Suncatcher Craft Tips

Here are some tips to help make this festive turkey Thanksgiving project amazing!

• Add some sparkle with glitter to your colorful turkeys!
• If you are making this sun catcher in a classroom setting, write each child’s name on the back of the turkey so you can know whose is whose.
• Although I used yellow, pink, and blue, feel free to use any color you want. Thanksgiving-themed colors, rainbow colors, or any other combo you love will work well!

Alternative Turkey Suncatcher Method: Use Contact Paper Instead Of Tape

We didn’t have any contact paper when we made our suncatcher turkey, so we had to pivot and use tape instead. Even though it worked well, I prefer using clear contact paper (like we did with one of our other window crafts – our nature mandala craft).

If you want to use contact paper, be aware that you’ll need two pieces of contact paper (for the front and back of the craft). Here’s how to use contact paper instead of tape:

• Start by adding the turkey outline on top of a sheet of contact paper – Lay one piece of contact paper (slightly larger than the turkey) on a table with the sticky side up. Carefully place your brown turkey outline shape onto the sticky side.
• Add tissue paper squares – Cut the tissue paper into small pieces and press them onto the contact paper inside the turkey outline. It looks best when the pieces overlap and there are no gaps or open spaces!
• Add second piece of contact paper on top – When you finish adding the tissue paper squares, lay the 2nd piece of contact paper (sticky side down) on top of the turkey suncatcher craft to “seal” it and hold everything together!
• Cut out the shape – Finish everything off by trimming around the edge of the turkey suncatcher.

Variations To Try

Add googly eyes to your Thanksgiving turkey craft instead of making your own eyes to give your turkey an extra silly look! Googly eyes make everything so much fun.

If you want to use contact paper for these beautiful suncatchers but can’t find any, use Press ‘n Seal – it works nearly the same because it has a sticky side too to hold all of the tissue paper squares in place!

This cheerful turkey sun catcher is a great Thanksgiving craft for the kids to make while they wait for their Thanksgiving dinner (or after they eat while the adults want to watch football and nap)!

More Fun Thanksgiving Crafts And Activities

If you love these colorful Thanksgiving decorations, I know you’ll love these other adorable projects this holiday season!

• Paper Bag Turkey Craft For Kids (Free Template)
• Fun Torn Paper Turkey Craft 
• Paper Bag Pilgrim Turkey Craft (Free Template)
• Torn Paper Candy Corn Craft
• Disguise A Turkey Cut And Color Paper Craft
• Free Thanksgiving Coloring Pages
• Thanksgiving Bingo Game Printable

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