Introduction: Recycled Wood Pallets Thanksgiving Turkey Decoration
With a little bit of ingenuity and a old wood pallet, we were able to make a cute and rustic looking turkey to decorate our front yards with!
Step 1: Find a Wood Pallet
If you drive around any "industrial" part of town, you're about 100% likely to find a pallet by a dumpster. Craigslist usually has somebody trying to give them away too. Be mindful of whether or not the pallet has been chemically treated before you cut into them.
Step 2: Tear Down!
Use a hammer or two to pull the pallet apart. Be mindful of old rusty nails!
Step 3: Make Some Tail Feathers!
Here's the hardest part of the build: cutting out the tail feathers. We made 30 degree cuts to the pallet boards to create a fence picket sort of appearance. This way, all the pieces fit together nicely and we don't have to worry about curved cuts.
The tail feathers consist of two layers, a back layer of five boards and a front layer of 4 boards. You can stagger their display so that each board is visible and it gives the illusion of a curved tail feather.
Screw everything together from the back so that it's sturdy, and now the fun part begins!
The tail feathers consist of two layers, a back layer of five boards and a front layer of 4 boards. You can stagger their display so that each board is visible and it gives the illusion of a curved tail feather.
Screw everything together from the back so that it's sturdy, and now the fun part begins!
Step 4: Cut Out the Head and Body
Think about how a bowling pin is shaped and then cut it out of another one of the pallet's boards. To give the turkey some depth, you're also going to want to put a board or two between the body and the tail feathers when screwing it in.
Step 5: Make a Support
Create a triangle using leftover boards to prop up the turkey's body. You don't know what kind of weather the turkey will have to brave this time of year, so give it a strong support to stay upright.
Step 6: Stain the Turkey and Give It a Face
Stain the turkey's body with an orange color to help it stand out a little more and then add some facial features. We used some old buttons for eyes, ribbon for the wattle, and a spare piece of triangular pallet wood for the nose.
Step 7: Show It Off!
Place your turkey in your front yard to show it off to all your neighbors. You'll become the envy of your neighborhood!