[alternate title: How NOT to do a Thanksgiving craft.]

At our house, Thanksgiving is a REAL meal. We dress up, we use china, cloth napkins and all sit around a decorated table. My husband’s family uses mismatched plates and paper napkins…but that’s another post. Anyway, this year I wanted to make something with Lydia that we could use on the table. Place cards or napkin rings or even a centerpiece. I just didn’t want it to be…well, you know…ugly. So, I was overjoyed when I saw this cute napkin ring craft over at Family Fun!

You use buttons lined up on popsicle sticks to make some “Indian corn”. I love it! Buttons are a weakness of mine and I knew Lydia would enjoy gluing them.

The original instructions suggested using 12 popsicle sticks on top of a 4×5.5 piece of felt. I decided to use fun foam instead.

I let Lydia glue on the 12 popsicle sticks. (I happened to have white ones left over from her Snowflake Party.)

Then we started gluing on the buttons. It is important to glue them straight down the popsicle sticks. This gives you the little rows of corn. So, we glued them as straight as we could. Then I realized the buttons were too big for the popsicle sticks. Even though we were gluing them straight, they were still overlapping onto other sticks.

Well, we kept going anyway and then let it dry. Then I tried to roll it up and admire our Indian corn. Only it wouldn’t roll. It looks more like…I don’t know, a trapezoid of buttons. But certainly not anything remotely related to the corn family. Not to mention half the buttons popped off.

In Conclusion:
1. Make sure your buttons are smaller than your popsicle sticks.
2. Make sure your buttons are all the same size.
3. Buy 3billion buttons.
4. Block off at least 2 hours. Unless you’re just eating Thanksgiving dinner with a family of 2. Because this takes a long time.
5. Actually follow the directions. Maybe using the fun foam made it worse? (Note to self: buy felt)

I guess we’ll have to stick with my mom’s napkin rings this year. But the worst part? I wasted all those buttons…

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So, do you have a fun Thanksgiving craft, tradition, recipe or activity to share?  You know, one that actually works? Well, link up with today’s Fall Impressions Carnival! Just write a post on your own blog about a great fall/autumn/thanksgiving activity.  Make sure this idea is kid-friendly and ideally shows your kids the truth about the season or impresses God’s Word on their hearts.

After posting, just click the Mr. Linky below to add the link to your post. (Not the link to your blog, but to your actual post.) And just to be nice, link back to this post, so others can participate, too!

Then come back and look at the other posts and find some fun stuff to do with your kids!

***looks like something is wrong with the Mr. Linky site. So, just leave your link in the comments if it’s not working for you…***

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