Autumn is a wonderful time for walks and foraging adventures. We love to grab a foraging bag and head out on sunny days to see what we can find. Then, what better way to spend an afternoon than using your imagination to turn whatever treasure you bring home into a wonderful piece of craft to keep or give as a gift.
To celebrate the fun you can have, we’ve pulled together our top 10 craft ideas for creating with autumn leaves. Each craft project is great for big and little hands and can be created with the minimum amount of crafting tools. Read on and let us know your favourite.
https://www.easypeasyandfun.com/leaf-hedgehogs-craft/
Thanks to easypeasyandfun.com it’s never been easier to create beautiful hedgehogs from fallen leaves. All you need is a good jaggedy-edged leaf, a pen, a piece of paper and some glue to stick your leaf down with. Then everyone can have fun creating their own family of hedgehogs to stomp across the page.
https://happyhomefairy.com/leaf-people
We just love these leaf people. The project is really fun and works well for all ages. Simply choose your most colourful leaves, add eyes and stick them to a lollipop stick. That not only create a lovely leaf person, it also gives you a great character to play with and create your own autumnal puppet performance. All you need are leaves, glue, wooden lollipop sticks and some moving eyes.
https://theimaginationtree.com/autumn-leaf-crown
We love the excuse to dress up and play and this leaf crown from The Imagination Tree gives us just that. It’s really simple to make. You can either use a collection of the same types of leaves or mix it up for more of a colourful and informal look.
However you choose it to look, creating the crown is really simple. A strip of white card, decorated with autumn colours forms the base. Then leaves are arranged and stuck on using a glue stick. Finally join it together to create a beautiful crown.
Equipment needed: crayons, card, leaves and glue.
https://www.munchkintime.com/super-cute-leaf-craft-for-kids/
Sometimes all you need is a great collection of colourful leaves and a big imagination. That’s definitely the case with this craft project from munchkintime.com. We love the way different leaves can be used for animal faces, legs, bodies and tails. Just add eyes and maybe use a bit of pen for those big smiling mouths.
https://www.handmadecharlotte.com/fall-leaf-crowns/
Leaf crowns don’t just need to make you feel like royalty. They can also make you feel like a wild tiger or timid pussycat. This blog from handmadecharlotte.com has a great range of leaf crowns so that your little people can choose their favourite design or the best match for the autumn leaves you’ve collected.
We love these animal crowns that are really simple to make and easily adapted for all age groups and skill levels. With this design your leaves are the ears to simply decide whose ears you have collected and you can create a face to match. All you need is card, pens and leaves and of course a stick of glue.
http://krokotak.com/2016/09/fall-flowers/
If you have ever looked at a bunch of beautiful autumn leaves and thought they look like flower petals then you will love this project. All it needs is a cardboard tube to serve as your vase, a straw for the stem, a selection of similar autumn leaves to serve as petals, and some coloured card to draw the face of your flower on.
Like all of the projects we’re sharing, this can be adapted for all ages. Budding artists can draw their own flower faces and younger children can simply enjoy sticking on the petals.
https://mamapapabubba.com/2014/09/29/leaf-rubbing-collages/#_a5y_p=2704684
Like Mamma.Pappa.Bubba points out – if you have lots of crayons without wrappers then this art project is a great way to put them to use. In fact, it’s so much fun you might just decide to tear the wrappers off your crayons so you can get involved.
All you need is a big selection of different autumn leaves, some paper and a selection of crayons. You can either arrange your leaves in a pattern and rub over them all at once or do them one at a time and build your picture slowly. Either way, to create your picture you just cover them with paper then use your crayons to gently rub over the surface. Children will love watching the incredible leaf art emerge.
https://minimadthings.com/blogs/news/autumn-leaf-mobile
Once you’ve collected your beautiful autumn leaves, you may want to put them on display. A mobile is a wonderful way to reflect the movement we see in Autumn as leaves fall from the trees in beautiful colourful drifts. Create your own drift of colour and keep enjoying it when you make a mobile.
We love this craft project from minimadthings.com. It is a little more complicated and definitely needs to be guided by an adult. The good news is that painting the leaves is a fun activity for all ages, and your mobile will be a beautiful addition to any room in the house. In fact we recommend you make more than one as we think everyone will want one!
As with all of our projects the craft elements needed are pretty simple here: Leaves, stick, yarn, paint sticks and tape.
