A Cornucopia Craft Tutorial and Other Thanksgiving Fun

One of the best ways to teach your child about the passage of time throughout the year is to make a big deal about the coming of each of the holidays that you celebrate as a family.

It was easy to make Halloween into An Event. There were pumpkins to decorate and costumes to plan—even decorations to admire when out and about. But after the big finish of Trick or Treating, I was left wondering how one makes Thanksgiving just as fun.

The short answer is, you can’t. Halloween is just too wonderful, especially for children, and spending time giving thanks and making hand turkeys out of construction paper will never be as joyful as dressing in costume and having strangers give you candy. We even received a handful of sour punch kids thrown out the window from a 3rd floor apartment. It’s the holiday that Brings. The. Fun.

But back to Thanksgiving. I want to teach about this national holiday, give an accurate depiction of the first celebration with the Wampanoag tribe, and take the opportunity to reinforce gratitude and kindness. And have fun with some traditional Thanksgiving elements like hand turkeys and cornucopias.

I selected a few books that I felt were more responsible with historical accuracy. The titles that I chose were: Squanto and the Miracle of Thanksgiving by Eric Metaxas, The Thanksgiving Story by Alice Dalgliesh, and The Story of the Pilgrims by Katharine Ross.

We’ve also been doing some crafts and activities, and even made the requisite hand turkeys out of construction paper. The Dover Press Pilgrim House and First Thanksgiving Sticker Activity Books were also fun and easy, and we received this Thanksgiving activity set from Nonna and Grandpa that kept up busy on a rainy fall weekend.

But something was missing. We had so much fun with plastic pumpkins and decals for Halloween, and I wanted to find a tactile toy for this holiday as well. I searched, but I couldn’t find a plastic cornucopia. I searched for a stuffed cornucopia toy also, but could only find one for a dog! Why do dogs get to enjoy the folklore of the horn of plenty but not children?!

I decided that I would just make one, and you can too. It’s a very easy project that even a sewing beginner can do, especially since nothing has to be perfect as it’s meant to look like a fabled horn shaped basket made from items gathered from nature.

Here are the step by step instructions on how to make the stuffed cornucopia that you never knew that you needed:

Choose a fabric. I chose Robert Kaufman Imaginings Woodgrain Walnut (design 18916) because I wanted the cornucopia to have a “woodsy” look, but you can get creative with this. You could use a floral pillowcase fabric, or an old toile that you never found a use for—really anything, but if you want it to look more natural, go with brown or something with a wood grain. (free pun: go with the grain.)

2. Cut two identical pieces into what will be the open cornucopia shape. You can eyeball this or use my photo as a pattern. The width should be about 27.5 and the height 16.

3. Place the fabric pieces back to back with the pattern side facing out. Then fold the outside in so they edges meet like in the photo.

4. Using dressmakers chalk, draw notches about every inch starting from the bottom to the top. (You will be marking the printed side of the fabric.)

5. Flip to the marked side and connect the lines going across from the left to the right.

6. Pin the two fabric pieces together, back to back, with the printed sides facing out. Then, using a thread color that works with your design choice, sew over each set of lines, cutting the threads after each segment.

7. Using the blunt edge of a pencil, stuff a small amount of polyester fiber fill into each segment. You will have to stuff from each end to get it to fill evenly. Push the fiber fill in to each segment so the first 3/4 inch is empty.

8. Fold the cornucopia in half, stuff a dime size bit of fiber fill in what will be the point of the cone, and starting at that point, sew the edges together.

9. You can use the same fabric to cover the seam so you don’t have a frayed edge, or even turn the edges into each other and sew. I did a small handstitch to hide the seam on the open part of the cone, but it’s not necessary.