Eco-Friendly Thanksgiving Projects for the Whole Family

This Thanksgiving, why not make it an eco-friendly event? Here are some eco-friendly projects that include the whole family.

1. Greeting cards

Thanksgiving is the time of year for sending cards. Making your own from junk mail and postal packaging is a fun project. Cut out pictures from holiday catalogues, gather sample cards that come in the mail, or otherwise collect interesting images from the free mail you receive. Then cut out greeting card-sized sheets of thin cardboard, thick envelopes, or other packaging. Use a paintbrush and decoupage medium, or white glue slightly watered down, and paste the images to the cardboard you cut out.

2. Decorations

Look to nature for the ultimate green decorating project. Here are some ideas.

* Make a wreath by gluing pinecones, acorns, and berries to a circular frame. Use a hot glue gun. The frame can be a recyclable item in your home, such as a bent coat hanger, or a circular piece of cardboard cut from an old shipping box. You can also weave and twist flexible evergreen boughs into a wreath. (Wear gloves for this project.)

* Cut holiday catalogues into strips and make a paper chain by gluing the strips into interlocking loops.

* Dried gourds can be made into turkeys with paste-on eyes, yarn, scrap paper, and so forth.

* Paste autumn leaves to a sheet of thin cardboard or thick paper (scrap or recycled). Then cover with clear contact paper to make a water-resistant placemat.

* Take an old sheet and let your kids stamp or paint leaf shapes onto it with fabric paint or markers. You can use rubber stamps or make your own potato stamps. You can also take real leaves, cover them with paint, and use them as stamps. Another fun decoration for your tablecloth is your family’s hand prints. We all learned in gradeschool how easily hand prints can be made into turkeys!

3. The centerpiece

Once again, looking to nature is a totally free, eco-friendly option for the center of your Thanksgiving table. You can also let your kids create sculptures and scenes. If you like, put it on a tabletop Lazy Susan or turntable in the middle of your table, so your centerpiece can be seen in the round.

* Make a blessing tree. Each family member can write things they are thankful for on leaf shapes cut from scrap paper. Then hang the paper leaves from a bare, multi-branched twig and mount it into a sand-filled flower pot.

* Use paper towel and toilet paper tubes to make Pilgrim figures. Yarn, scrap construction paper, buttons, and other items can be used to decorate the tubes. Surround them with mini gourds or pumpkins.

* Simply heap gourds, pumpkins, pine cones, apples, acorns, leaves, and straw in an attractive arrangement.

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