Ack! Sorry about the radio silence all week. Let’s just say, things happened, and posts didn’t get written.
But Nancy Overton, (Paul’s Mom), has saved us with a cute Thanksgiving project. Hope you enjoy!
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In the Bay Area the pinecones begin to fall off the trees around October first. They fall at my feet as I walk the dog. They litter the driveways and the street. They come in all sizes. I try not to acknowledge their presence. I try to think of them as kindling for the fire. I try to ignore their inherent beauty, the pregnancy of their seed bearing potential, their turkey potential.
I can’t remember the first year I made a pinecone turkey or how the evolution of parts came together or what I had in mind. I know that my neighbors liked them and gladly put them on their Thanksgiving tables. And the next year I made a few more and gave them to my friends in art class. My aerobics class received theirs last year, my water aerobics class this year. I just can’t seem to stop.
Mother nature provides me with a bounty of supplies. I add my time and a glue gun and a spool of thin red ribbon. I do wear my garden gloves when handling the big cones to pull off the “petals” for the turkey feet and the feathers. I keep my garden sheers close in case I need to modify a bump or a length.
These turkeys work well as place cards. Everyone gets a pinecone turkey with their name card secured between tail feathers.
Materials:
Very big dried cones that have 1-1/2” to 3” “petals” to use for the feet and the tail feathers
Medium sized cones for the body
Small cones for the head (cypress cones work well too)
Acorns (half acorns) for the beak or in pinch maybe pistachio shells would work.
1/4” red ribbon
Hot glue gun and glue sticks
Garden snips
Garden gloves
Scissors
Instructions:
Glue a small cone to a medium sized (body) cone to make the head. Point the end of the medium sized cone and the open end of the small cone toward you and interlock their “petals” so that the small cone sits close to the front of the medium cone.
Glue two “petals” from a large cone to make the feet. Hold the head and body in an upright position so that you can figure out where the feet will go. Glue the feet. Secure the small “petal” end from the large cone into spaces between the “petals” of the medium cone body. You may need to add a third petal at the back of the cone to steady it.
Glue the small ends of five to seven “petals” from a large cone to the wide ends of the “petals” of the body to make the tail feathers.
Cut an acorn in half for the beak. Half of a pistachio shell might work as well. Glue to the upper-middle part of the “head”. Add a piece of red ribbon for the snood or gobble.
Happy Thanksgiving!
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