Easy DIY Thanksgiving Decor: Oreo Turkeys and More!

Last year I hosted Thanksgiving for my family, and I went into full-on Pinterest searching, party planning, decorating crazy mode!  I had Thanksgiving Bingo planned, and a Thankfulness jar complete with questions on paper leaves that everyone had to pass around and answer.  I had goodie bags for every guest and a kiddie table that would make Martha Stewart proud.  So from me, to you, I share my Thanksgiving ideas.

I am by no means a Pinterest expert, so rest assured I tested these out myself and tried to supply all information to avoid Pinterest fails. Ain't nobody got time for that!

How to Make Oreo Turkeys

I saw this idea on Pinterest from Our Best Bites, and I thought, how hard could it be?  I'm not going to lie- it's a little labor intensive.

It wasn't hard, just time consuming, especially since I decided, for some unknown reason, to make THIS many turkeys:

Yep, that was me.  So anyway, if you want to make these Oreo Turkeys, here you go:

You Will Need:

-Oreos (do NOT get the singles, they MUST be DOUBLE STUFF!!)
-Reeses peanut butter cups
-candy corn
-decorator frosting (in red, yellow and white)
-sprinkles (for eyes)
-malted milk balls (like Whoppers)

Now this might sound like a total cop-out, but for an entire tutorial on how to assemble them, you need to visit Our Best Bites.  She does a far better job than I ever could!  Then scroll below for some of my tips on how to keep the turkeys together and how to decorate your table for Thanksgiving.

Oreo Turkey Tip:  I skimped and just used frosting for the beaks because I couldn't get the candy corns to stay on as beaks.  Getting them to stand up to dry as I was making them was also an issue, so I used a cookbook and propped them against the backsplash in the kitchen to harden.  I originally tried drying them flat but it wasn't working.

(I highly recommend that cookbook for crockpot meals, by the way!  It's called Fix-It and Forget It by   Phyllis Pellman Good).  Anywho, you might notice that I stuck frosting in between the cookies to get the candy corn to stay in there.  That's because, like a dope, I did not buy the Double Stuf Oreos and I could not get the candy corn to stay in there right.  Note to self for next time!

My turkeys came out so cute!  I put one by each plate and they were the talk of the evening.  But no one wanted to eat them because they were so adorable.

Thanksgiving Table Decor

Here's what my table looked like all set (pre-Oreo turkeys added):

Believe it or not, many of my table decorations were the Better Homes brand from Walmart.  And here's a pic of the kids' table, which only wound up having one kid at it (mine) who didn't actually want to sit there anyway.  But at least it looked cute:

The paper decor and the coloring print-out were from PaperGlitter.  I have bought so many printables from her Etsy store.  I am in LOVE with her cute characters!!! She also offered some free Thanksgiving printables on her blog, so be sure to check that out, too.

Here are the goodie bags that each guest took home.  The bags were from Target or Walmart.  I think they were 50 cents each.

The tags, again, were made from my printable purchase from PaperGlitter's Etsy store.   The extra candy corn was for our Thanksgiving Bingo game, which I purchased from Current Catalog.

Last but not least, I gave each guest a poem, and had it printed from Shutterfly.  I had received a coupon to get cards for free, so I ordered these:

The little turkey salt and pepper shakers were from Cracker Barrel.

I have no pictures of the actual meal, would you believe that?  But I do have pictures of the week after, when I was trying to put all of the Thanksgiving decorations away.  Then, my table looked like this:

Bring on Christmas!