Two Turtle Doves Craft and Ornament

I’m joining up with a few other bloggers to celebrate the 12 Days of Christmas. Yesterday we kicked off with a fun Partridge in a Pear Tree ornament and snack from Silly Sparkles. Today I’m sharing a cute Two Turtle Doves craft and ornament. Tomorrow you can head to Learning and Exploring Through Play for a fun project with 3 French Hens.

Two Turtle Doves Craft

Inspired by these sweet birds that popped up in my Pinterest feed, we set out to make two turtle doves out of simple shapes. After studying a google search of turtle doves, we decided to go with white and brown for our colors and to create a fanned tail. Since turtle dove bodies appear to be rather long, we added a circle head to the original bird. We used cookie cutters to make our circles and triangle that we cut out of the paper. We dabbed the cutters on an ink pad then pressed the cutters to the paper to leave the shape that we used as a guide for cutting.

Cut out of white paper:

two large circles

four small circles

Cut out of brown paper:

two medium circles

two triangles

hole punch four circles

Cut out of orange paper:

two triangles

Assemble Your Two Turtle Doves

To assemble the body: Fold each of the large white circles in half. Do the same with the medium brown circles. Using a glue stick, attach the brown circle to the large white circle placing the fold in the brown on the fold in the white. Fold the brown triangle in half and glue to the underside of the white circle, again placing the folds inside each other.

To assemble the head: Fold the bird in half along the fold. Apply glue to one small white circle and place at the tip of the bird opposite the tail. Place the orange triangle for the beak on the glue side of the small white circle. Apply glue to one side of the other small white circle and place on the small white circle attached to the body. The beak and the tip of the body should be sandwiched between the two small white circles. Glue hole-punched brown circles, one on each side of the head, for eyes.

Repeat again for the second turtle dove. My older girls were able to stamp the cookie cutters on to the paper and cut out their shapes without my help, just my supervision. For my younger ones, I would prep this activity by cutting all the pieces ahead of time and then beginning this activity from the assembly directions.

These two turtle doves are just darling! Since the bottom edge of the body isn’t glued together, they can rest on a flat surface. We found that our turtle doves rocked with the beak dipping down to the table. We imagined the two turtle doves were pecking for seeds. By giving the tail a slight push, we enjoyed watching our turtle doves rock back and forth for quite some time.

Turn Two Turtle Doves into an Ornament

Since turtle doves represent love and devotion, we created a heart shaped pocket for them. Again, we used a cookie cutter to make the shape and cut out the heart from thick scrapbook paper. Then I hole punched up the sides and sewed the yarn through tying it in a bow at the bottom. Now the two turtle doves have a lovely home on our Christmas tree.

Happy Holiday season! What fun memories are you making with your family this year?

This post is part of a festive blog hop series for the ’12 Days of Christmas’ – a lovely collection of craft ideas hosted by Silly Sparkles!

Click on the image above to follow each of the 12 Days of Christmas craft ideas!

Taking part in this blog hop are:

Silly Sparkles – A Partridge in a Pear Tree

Because Babies Grow Up – 2 Turtle Doves

Building Blocks and Acorns – 3 French Hens

Messy Little Monster – 4 Calling Birds

Multicrafting Mummy – 5 Golden Rings

Swords and Snoodles – 6 Geese a Laying

Craft Ideas for Kids – 7 Swans a Swimming

Three Foot Cooks – 8 Maids a Milking

Making Memories in the Chaos – 9 Ladies Dancing

Adventures of Adam – 10 Lords a Leaping

Play Explore Learn – 11 Pipers Piping

Learning and Exploring Through Play – 12 Drummers Drumming