UHeart Organizing: Little Gobblers to Gobble!

Raise your hand if you are excited for Thanksgiving!  Can you believe it is next week already?!  I can't wait to do some final crafts and baking with the kids.  Well, for me, baking is more like me sticking a few pieces of candy on a pre-packaged cookie.  But my kids love things like that, so when I saw what Ashley whipped up, I was over the turkey excited to give it a whirl!  Here she is now...

Hey everyone! I’m so excited to be back here guest posting at iHeart Organizing! Today, since Thanksgiving is just around the corner, I’m gearing a little bit away from organizing and going to talk about one of our favorite family traditions around this time of year. Meet our Little Gobblers...

This tradition started when I was in 7th grade and my mom and Aunt Dee Dee have been making them for our family and friends every year since. It’s so much fun to unwrap all of the ingredients, put in a good Christmas movie {which, around our house, is most likely going to be White Christmas} and start the Little Gobblers assembly line.

Here’s the breakdown of the anatomy of a Little Gobbler... The base and back of the turkey is a Nabisco Famous Chocolate Wafer Cookie. The feathers are candy corn with a full-size Reese cup at the base. The body is a Nutter Butter cookie {my favorite!}. The beak, “gobbler” and feet are made up of yellow, red and orange Jelly Belly jelly beans. The eyes are brown M&M minis. Lastly, to hold everything together, we use white cookie icing.

The assembly process is pretty much self explanatory. Just use the photo as your guideline. To make things super simple, I also put together a printable complete with a shopping list and a few tips and tricks. //CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD//

Speaking of the tips and tricks, here are a few that we’ve learned over the years of making these little guys...

On the Hunt. The Nabisco Famous Chocolate Wafter Cookies {used for the back and the base of the turkey} are sometimes a little hard to find. If your grocery store carries them, they’ll most likely be in the ice cream section. BUT if you have trouble finding them, thanks to the Internets, you can buy them online OR visit the Nabisco website and search for them by zip code. Also, be sure to buy an extra box because they tend to break very easily and you’re bound to have a few broken renegades in the box. If for some reason you still have trouble finding them, a reader let us know that she used World Table Chocolate Cookies and they still turned out great {thanks, Katherine!}.

Organizing Makes the World Go ‘Round! When it’s time to assemble your Little Gobblers, start out by unwrapping all of the ingredients, pick out the needed colors {the brown M&M minis, orange Jelly Bellys, etc} and organize them in separate bowls. This will make the entire process much more enjoyable and faster. Yes! I managed to get an organizing tip in!

The Secret. There’s a secret to holding these little guys together... the icing! After years of trial and error, we’ve found that the BEST icing to hold everything together is Betty Crocker Cookie Icing. Not only does it actually taste good, but it serves as the perfect “glue” to keep the troops in one piece. Without good, stiff icing, let’s just say that we know from experience they won’t take a car ride very well. Oh, and a good rule of thumb to use when buying your ingredients is one tube will make about 6 Little Gobblers.

Point A to Point B. Speaking of car rides, before transporting them anywhere, make sure your Little Gobblers have enough time to sit and mingle. When transporting them, we line the bottom of a deep Rubbermaid container with paper towels then place the turkeys on the paper towels diagonally side by side {so the feathers don’t knock each other}. If we’re making a whole flock {haha}, we like to use the disposable roasting pans from the grocery store.

These little guys are perfect for Thanksgiving dinner favors, for the kids’ table, to bring to your coworkers, and even that class party you signed up for. You can even have a table in the corner at your Thanksgiving dinner and guests can have fun constructing their own Little Gobbler. Trust me when I say, these Little Gobblers will be the talk of the event... and might even outshine the “real” turkey.

"I'm Ashley from 7th House on the Left - a blog where my husband, Greg, and I talk about renovating, decorating and living in our first house here in Hanover, Virginia. I’ve been an interior design enthusiast and a long-time fan of all things organizing. Yep, I was the kid with the perfectly arranged Disney stuffed animals, alphabetized coloring books and the categorized and color-coded sticker book. When I'm not busy writing or doing projects around the house, I love classic TV shows (particularly I Love Lucy) and curling up with Greg, Bentley (our 9-pound Pomeranian), a blanket and a good black and white classic movie – I’m a complete sucker for Audrey Hepburn, Doris Day, Katharine Hepburn and Cary Grant films. I'm thrilled and honored to be a part of the IHeart Organizing team and excited to get to work!"