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Want to decorate a fun kids’ table without a holiday theme? Take your cue from a playful song and incorporate the fox. Or expand the motif to other woodland creatures – an owl, squirrel, deer – for a tabletop menagerie.
Foxes were a popular motif even before the Norwegian comedy team Ylvis’ lighthearted song “The Fox (What Does the Fox Say?)” became a hit on YouTube this fall.
Now, they are “the animal of the moment,” says quilter Amanda Woodruff of Mapleton, Utah, who blogs at A Crafty Fox.
“They are all over Etsy,” she says of the crafts website. “They’re this cute little woodland animal that’s unusual. We went through the owl phase and then we had to put birds on everything.” Now it’s the fox’s turn.
Just a few of the foxy tabletop crafts:
– Place cards: There are many good ideas, including origami-folded foxes. (www. origami-instructions.com)
Paper Source sells a fox place-card kit that also can be made with supplies on hand – mostly card stock, glue and scissors, preferably scallop-patterned or pinking shears. Use an approximately 5-inch-long oval shape for the fox’s body and half an oval for its head. The rest of the parts are smaller, and all the shapes are simple to reproduce. I made these at home with the neighbor’s 6-year-old daughter. After creating a few templates, we had no trouble churning out cards. (www.paper-source.com )
– Run fox-themed wrapping paper or fabric down the center of the table as a runner. Or baste-stitch three or more fox-motif tea towels together.
– Children can make a Mama and Papa Fox centerpiece using Styrofoam balls and cones plus felt, fabric, notions and plenty of kid ingenuity. For fun at the table, they can make fox finger puppets: Wrap a big-eared, orange-felt body cut from a template around a wine cork, and glue the overlapping edges. Once the fox’s facial features are added and the finger puppet dries, it can be removed from the cork. (www.parents.com )
– Also from Parents magazine: Turn a slice of pumpkin pie into a fox using whipped cream (spray, not tub), two fig bars and two brown M&Ms: Cut each fig bar into a triangle and place at the upper (crust-line) corners of a pie slice; with whipped-cream, draw two eyes and a smile; add the M&Ms atop cream for eyes.
– Jennifer Dougherty of Hibbing, Minn., created a crocheted fox hat that can be made in several sizes, including for babies and adults. The pattern is downloadable from her Etsy.com store, Crochet by Jennifer. (www.crochetbyjennifer.com)
This photo provided by Meredith Corp. shows the FamilyFun Fox craft by Kimberly Stoney and Lisa Stowe. Take a cue from the YouTube hit song “The Fox (What Does the Fox Say?)” by Ylvis to decorate the Thanksgiving table with a fox theme or expand the motif to other woodland creatures for a tabletop menagerie. (AP Photo/Meredith Corp./FamilyFun, Alexandra Grablewski)
This photo features paper fox place cards made by children, with adult guidance, from supplies on hand. They are based on Paper Source’s Fox Place Card Kit available online (www.paper-source.com). Take a cue from the YouTube hit song “The Fox (What Does the Fox Say?)” by Ylvis to decorate the Thanksgiving table with a fox theme or expand the motif to other woodland creatures for a tabletop menagerie. “The fox is the perfect motif for around the fall period (because) it has that great orange-red color,” says Katie Mulligan, a gift buyer for the store Paper Source. (AP Photo/Jennifer Forker)