Normally my crafts are much less involved, but I used to do a LOT of mosaic when I crafted for a living, and I really miss it. This does take several days to complete because of the drying time involved with adhesive, grout and polyurethane. But the whole family helped with this project, so it will be an extra special present that was totally worth the time we spent on it!

Thanksgiving Turkey Mosaic Platter

What You Need to Make This Thanksgiving Mosaic Platter Project

Thanksgiving Mosaic Craft Materials

Everything I needed for this platter I got at my local craft store:

Small unfinished wooden tray

Craft paint (I used brown and red)

Glass mosaic tiles – 3/8 inch in 7 colors. I bought mine in two fall color assortment packages – Red, yellow, orange in one, & off white, tan, brown and reddish brown in another.

In addition to what is pictured above, you will also need:

Sanded tile grout - off white.

Water based polyurethane (my preference because it doesn’t smell at all and is super-easy to clean up).

E6000 glue - perfect for adhering glass to wood.

Beads for the beak and eye, or you can use pliers made for glass cutting to shape these pieces.

Sandpaper

How to Make this Keepsake Thanksgiving Platter

Plan Your Thanksgiving Mosaic Pattern

“Stain” Your Wood and Do A Trial Run

First of all, water down some brown paint and use it as a ’stain’ for the outside edges of the wood platter. When I painted art furniture for a living, I found this method to be WAY easier than messing around with oil based stains, and gave nearly identical results.

After the paint has dried (which will take less than an hour), sand the wood to remove all rough edges. You can do this before you paint, but I wanted a weathered look, so I sanded after I painted.

Then start arranging your tiles on the platter to get an idea of where you will want to place them with the glue. I highly recommend this trial run, because trying to ‘draw’ with glass squares is a little challenging, especially around curves. I also discovered that I had started my design too far from the bottom edge, so when I glued the tiles, I knew to start much further down.

Glue the Mosaic Tiles in Place

Turkey Mosaic - Glue the Glass Tiles to the Platter

E6000 is both a tricky and forgiving glue to work with. Tricky because it is not so easy to spread and dries kind of fast. Forgiving because even though it dries fast, it doesn’t dry all the way for a longer period of time, which means you can make minor adjustments in tile positions if you need to.

The way I found worked best was to spread the glue in the shape of an area I wanted to cover – such as the turkey neck, then body, then half of the feather area, etc. Then press your tiles (grooved side down!) into the glue. Once the tile has been on the glue for a few minutes, try not to pull it up again. But you can move it slightly from side to side if you find you need to make adjustments for fitting pieces into your design.

Since I didn’t want to cut the tiles (too sharp for little hands to help), I used a few beads I had on hand to make the beak and eye. If you want to cut tiles for a more precise fit, use pliers made for glass cutting. Really – trust me on this, don’t use anything else to cut glass tiles. It will save you hours of frustration and wasted broken tile pieces (and probably sliced fingers. Yes, I speak from experience).

If you were tiling a floor, you would have to make sure that your grout lines were always a certain width, but for a craft project, you have way more leeway. Just make sure that no spot is big enough for another tile to fit there. You can see I have a few awkward gaps in some places, but I love the look of handmade stuff, so I purposefully didn’t let myself get perfectionistic about placing the tiles into the design.

Allow Your Mosaic to Dry

My kids loved helping me with this part, and even fought over turns. We’ll probably have to do more mosaic soon!

Once your tiles are in place, allow the platter to dry for at least 24 hours.

Grout The Mosaic

Important - before you grout, tape off the wood around the perimiter of the tiles (like you would if you were painting). The grout sticks to raw wood (unfortunately very well), and makes for a real mess you would have to sand off later. I used clear tape that you can’t see in these pictures.

Grouting the Glass Tiles

I bought my grout at Home Depot, just using the smallest container they had of pre-mixed grout. I always hated mixing grout myself. I used an old kitchen spatula to spread the grout between the tiles. Be sure to press the grout down in between the tiles and spread it around as you smooth it in all directions. Sometimes the grout looks like it is everywhere when it really isn’t, so it’s very important to spread in all directions to get it down into all the various spaces between the tiles. The kids helped with this too, just make sure they either wear gloves or don’t get it on their skin.

For grouting around the beads, make sure you uncover them enough to see them. My beads were not as tall as the tiles, so there is a slight indentation there.

When you’re done, scrape off as much excess grout as possible. It should look somewhat like this – don’t worry about the haze:

Mosaic Thanksgiving Platter - Grout Completed

Let the grout dry for at least an hour or 90 minutes. Then use a wet sponge or paper towel to removed the grout haze. It comes off quite easily now.

Let the grout cure for an additional 24-48 hours, according to the label directions.

Final Step – Protect with Polyurethane

You have to seal and protect the platter so that you can clean it later after use. I hate the fumes and cleanup of normal polyurethane, so I use a water-based polyurethane if possible. I wouldn’t use it on hardwood floors or furniture, but it’s perfect for craft projects. Be sure to cover both the top, tiles and bottom of the platter. Put on two coats and let dry between coats according to product instructions. Sand lightly between the coats, too. I know it’s a PITA, but it makes sure the second coat adheres to the first coat, especially if you are using a gloss finish like I did.

Thanksgiving Platter - Mosaic Pattern

Here’s the finished product with a top view so that you can use it as a pattern template!

More Thanksgiving Crafts

You might also like this keepsake Thanksgiving plate craft, or here are easier turkey crafts for younger children. Here are also some Thanksgiving appetizer recipes to serve on your new platter!

Last weekend we finished up our keepsake Thanksgiving plates. I’ll be using these every year until I’m old and gray, I tell you!

Thanksgiving Keepsake Plate Craft

These turkey handprints are surprisingly easy to make, you just need a few special materials found at any craft store:

What You Need to Make Thanksgiving Handprint Keepsake Plates

Thanksgiving Keepsake Handprints - Craft Materials

Plain white plates – I got mine at my local dollar store – cheap, cheap, cheap!

Folk Art Enamel paints – these are baked onto the plate surface after the painting is done, so be sure to get the Enamels. They don’t come in a huge number of colors, so you will be mixing colors from red, green, yellow and brown paints. I also used black paint for the eyes, but you can use one of your existing colors for that tiny dot, too.

Paint brushes

Keepsake Thanksgiving Plate

Wash and dry the plates, and get a paper plate ready to use for mixing your paint colors. There’s no exact science to it, I just created different shades of red and orange out of the brown, red and yellow paints. When trying to mix lighter colors, use only a very little bit of the darker color and mix more if necessary. These pigments are pretty saturated and light colors are easily overpowered.

For the above design, I used:

Straight brown for the palm and thumb

Straight red for one finger

Light orange (yellow plus a little red) for another finger

Dark red (red and brown) for another finger

Darker red (red brown and a drop or two of green) for the last finger

You can mix it up and also use straight green like my son did for one of his fingers.

Plate Painting Instructions

If they mess up, don’t worry, just wash the paint off while it is still wet and start over!

Working fairly quickly (because the paint can dry out fast), paint the colors onto your child’s hand. Be generous with the paint, but you don’t want globs of it coming off onto the surface. Help your child hold their fingers apart and center it over the plate, then guide it down in position and have them press their handprint for a few seconds. After they lift their hands, they may need to press again to ensure the full handprint makes it onto the plate. Because the finger impressions didn’t end up touching the palm impression, I went back in with some brown paint and filled in the parts of their hands that didn’t come in contact with the plate.

If you end up with thick globs of paint, take off the excess with a paint brush, because baking globs of the enamel paint doesn’t turn out well at all.

After your kids have washed their hands, have them come back with a small paint brush and add the eye, beak and red turkey waddle underneath the chin.

For the outside rim decorations, I gave each of them only a little guidance. I was really pleased to see all of them come up with interesting designs that complimented each other yet were very much a reflection of their personalities.

After they were all done, I took a tiny bit of black paint and added “2009″ to the bottom corner of their handprints. Then I painted their initials onto each plate .

Bake according to the directions on the Enamel paints.

While these plates can’t be used for eating, they can dress up your walls, decorate your Thanksgiving table, be excellent hostess gifts for Grandma, or be used as charger plates for smaller see through plates!

Here are more Thanksgiving handprint crafts, printable Thanksgiving placecards, and an adorable set of Thanksgiving finger puppets to make!

Here are more turkey crafts and turkey paper bag crafts, too!

Paper Turkey Construction Paper Turkey Craft

Fall Tree Autumn Leaves Handprint Tree

Cardboard Turkey Toilet Paper Roll Turkey

Keepsake Plates Handprint Keepsake Plates

Check out all of our handprint crafts and the rest of our Thanksgiving crafts and activities, too!

Thanksgiving Turkey Luminary	Cute Paper Bag Turkeys	Brown Bag Thanksgiving Turkey Craft	Turkey Hat Craft
Turkey Treat Bags	Turkey Puppet Craft	Turkey Paper Bag Puppet	Paper Bag Turkeys

For more Turkey Day fun, check out these Thanksgiving handprint crafts, more turkey crafts, and these printable turkey pinwheel crafts!

This idea for Turkey pinwheels came to me yesterday when I was out in the car running errands. Is it just me, or do you also get your best ideas at the most inconvenient times, too? Like in the shower – or while I’m cleaning and covered in grime… seriously.

For more Thanksgiving printables, check out these Thanksgiving masks, printable Thanksgiving placecards, and these turkey coloring pages!

Thanksgiving Pinwheel Paper Craft

Thanksgiving Paper Craft Pinwheels

Assembly instructions are on page 1 – they spin better if you can use heavier paper, btw!

Turkey Tail Feather Pinwheel	Turkey Tail Feather Pinwheel for Coloring
Turkey Pinwheel Center	Turkey Pinwheel Center for Coloring

Be sure to check out all of the Thanksgiving activities from the Woo! Jr. Network!

But there’s something very cool and retro about cooking from a cookbook with no pictures and recipes written almost 80 years ago. So when I decided to make Thanksgiving placecards this year, I decided they had to be retro, too.

Retro Thanksgiving Placecards - Landscape	Retro Thanksgiving Placecards -- Portrait
Thanksgiving Folk Art Placecards - Landscape	Thanksgiving Basket Placecards - Portrait

You might also like this turkey printable mask, or the rest of our Thanksgiving activities and printables, too!

So I got a little nostalgic making these Thanksgiving masks today – sometimes that dang universe sure leads us to exactly where we need to be, don’t you think?

Paper Masks for Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving Turkey Mask	Thanksgiving Mask - Native American
Thanksgiving Mask - Pilgrim Woman	Thanksgiving Mask - Pilgrim Man

I sure have a lot more Thanksgiving content this year compared to last year, so check out the Thanksgiving activities from all Woo! Jr. Network sites!

Easy Thanksgiving Kids Craft - Finger Puppets

Thanksgiving Finger Puppets Craft Materials List

I’ve placed a photograph next to each finger puppet with the exact materials needed for each Halloween Critter. All of them require a very easy to find set of stuff:

Pipe Cleaners

Pom Poms (The pumpkin puppet uses a larger pom pom than the others)

Googly Eyes

Glue (Hot glue gun works best, but I’ve since discovered that even regular glue will suffice, it just takes longer to dry)

Wire Cutters (So you don’t ruin your scissors cutting the pipe cleaners)

The pilgrim finger puppet also needs fabric paint

The Turkey and Indian need foam autumn leaves (found at Oriental Trading or offline at your local big box craft store)

How to Make Thanksgiving Finger Puppets

Please refer to the original Easter finger puppets post for general assembly instructions.

It explains the general instructions on how to wind the pipe cleaners around your finger and how to attach the pom poms accurately.

Thanksgiving Turkey Finger Puppet

Turkey Finger Puppet Craft

Pick 3-5 foam leaves and arrange them in a fan to become the turkey tail feathers. If you found foam leaf stickers, you can just adhere them that way. Otherwise glue them together as shown.

Wind the orange pipe cleaner finger puppet base.

Bend a 3 inch brown piece of pipe cleaner as shown for the turkey head and neck:

Pipe Cleaner Turkey Craft

Glue the tail feathers onto the back of the large dark red pom pom.

Glue the cut end of the brown pipe cleaner turkey neck into the front of the pom pom.

Glue the tiny bright red pom pom onto the bottom of the turkey head to make his waddle.

Glue googly eyes in place.

Glue the finished turkey to the finger puppet base.

Thanksgiving Pilgrim Finger Puppet

Pilgrim Finger Puppet

Wind the black pipe cleaner finger puppet base.

Take a full size black pipe cleaner and bend it into the shape of a pilgrim hat. This photo doesn’t help too much, but I folded the square top of the hat first, then made two tight loops for the hat brim:

Pipe Cleaner Pilgrim Hat

Use white dimensional fabric paint to paint on the hat band as shown.

Glue the hat onto the pom pom head.

Glue the googly eyes in place.

Glue the head onto the finger puppet base.

Thanksgiving Indian Finger Puppet

Thanksgiving Indian Finger Puppet

Wind the brown pipe cleaner finger puppet base.

Cut about a 2.5 inch piece of red pipe cleaner and bend it into a circle as shown.

Glue it onto the tan pom pom head.

Glue the red “feather” leaf in place on the back of the head.

Glue the googly eyes in place.

Glue the head onto the finger puppet base.

More Kids Thanksgiving Crafts and Fall Crafts

Turkey crafts for kids

Printable Thanksgiving placecards

Thanksgiving handprint crafts

Fall Acorn Crafts