Tutorial Tuesday: Thanksgivukkah Kids Craft

Once every 79,043 years, the first day of Hanukkah and Thanksgiving coincide. So, Thanksgivukkah is a big deal! There are YouTube celebrations and parodies, activities, and recipes. There was even a Kickstarter campaign that involved a turkey-shaped menorah - a Menurkey.

While I'm not a crafter and I've never been this close to Mod Podge in my life, I have a houseful of kids coming this weekend, so I thought it would be fun to do a craft project. The idea is that they can create a keepsake for Thanksgivukkah, which they can pull out and dust off for the next time. It may require a lot of dusting after 79,043 years.

Supplies:

• A glass platter or plate
• Some clip art, printed on regular printer paper
• A "Happy Thanksgivukkah" caption, also printed
• Mod Podge - I used the glossy type but any would work
• Gold or silver paint or sparkle glue
• Tissue paper, for the back

I bought a glass plate at the dollar store. I painstakingly peeled off the sticker. That was maybe the hardest part.

I downloaded a bunch of images from Happy Chanukah, a really sweet DoverPictura collection. Yes, the Chanukah spelling is preferred there. We probably spent several hours debating how to spell Chanukah on that title. Guess what? There's no standard spelling for Thanksgivukkah either! 

I put the images into a Powerpoint, and typed Happy Thanksgivukkah onto a slide. I got those all at the size I wanted, and did a similar thing to the images I pulled from Full Color Holiday Vignettes. So, now there was an easy way of printing out a caption and my images. A better Photoshop hand would have made some fun compositions. 

Now I get it when they talk about clip art. You cut them out!

I picked some pink tissue paper to be the background. More on that later. Because I'm lazy, I didn't cut out each letter. I just took some colored pencils and colored the white background pink to match the tissue. I placed the images on the plate, and and brushed Mod Podge on the back of the plate. It was $9.99 at the store, but I found a 60% off coupon. So, I have a huge tub of the stuff. Beware of more Mod Podge postings.

Then my son came back from hockey practice. He did not approve of the pink background. So we switched it to brown. So much for the pink colored pencils, huh?

I crinkled up the brown tissue paper, and spread more Mod Podge over the whole back of the plate. Then I stuck the paper on the back of the plate, behind the paper cutouts. I left it to dry. Then I rummaged in a drawer with all kinds of crafty things left in the house, and found some gold sparkly glue/paint in the back of the drawer. I squeezed that all around the edges, covering up the edge of the tissue and the sides of the plate. I have a latke plate just in time for the big day! 

Here's the reveal:

My husband said charitably, "That's the most beautiful Thanksgivukkah plate I have ever seen."

Cost:

$4.46 for the Mod Podge - with coupon. 97% of the bottle is still left.

$1.07 for the plate with Massachusetts sales tax

$2.97 x 3 for the images, which we'll reuse 

Thanksgivukkah joy = Priceless!