Thanksgiving dinner magnetic paper dolls

Happy Thanksgiving!

It's a little sad when I look around the house, and realize we go all out to decorate for Halloween and Christmas...but not Thanksgiving. I remember it being a much bigger deal when I was a kid,  so I thought I would make some festive toys/decorations for our house this year.

A toy celebrating the first Thanksgiving, the coming together of the Pilgrims and Native Americans.

Another magnetic toy, yes we love those around here!

 So, I used one of my favorite go-to items, an Altoids tin, to store the little paper dolls, and also double as the table. 

The magnetic background, is just a tin lid, with an image placed over top. (I found this image from a sheet of scrap-booking paper)

The tin is decorated, but also keeps everything together.

Materials;

*Altoid tin

*Fabric -8" x 6.5"

*Craft glue

*Scissors

*Card stock-white/off white

*miniature scrap-booking brads

*colored pencils, black pen

*images for background/scenery-photo's, drawings,scrap-book paper

*thin magnet

*a large tin lid- anywhere from 5"-12" wide.  Use what you can find, just needs to be big enough to display 

the characters.

1. Clean the tin out, and then I used some cute fabric, and glued it to the tin, wrapping

it like a gift.   The fabric measured about 8" x 6.5". Do not glue along the back edge of tin, where the hinge

is, let the fabric stay loose there, so you can open and close it.

2.Pic an image for the inside of the tin, to cover the fabric edges. You could draw, cut out from a 

magazine or photo. Again, I used some scrap-booking paper for this.

3.I drew my dinner guests on card stock paper,  about 3 1/2" tall, with black ink, and colored pencil.

I used the tiniest brads I could find (in the scrap-booking section of craft store) and made 

the arms and legs movable. (this is optional)

4.I cut tiny pieces of thin magnet and glued to the backs of the people and the food.

Be sure you don't glue over the brads!

5.Then find a metal lid, from cookies or those giant popcorn tins, and use it to trace the circle on your background image, and cut to fit inside the lid. You can glue in place or just set inside, the magnetic people, hold it in, and this way, you can change up the background with different images. 

 They are ready to feast, have fun!

My kids totally love this, but I know many adults that would enjoy this too!
Have a wonderful Thanksgiving!