By 
I don’t know about you, but strolling around town this time of year, I find it hard not to be distracted by all of the beautiful colors and shapes of leaves that have fallen to the ground. It always makes me a little sad, to see such beauty go to waste. With this fun craft, you can breathe new life into those fallen leaves!
On your next nature walk or stroll outdoors with your little one, pick out some of your favorite leaves. Collect them in a small bag and bring them indoors. Press them between the pages of a heavy book for several days. Once the leaves have been pressed for a few days, you’re ready for your craft!
What You Need
- Pressed Leaves
- A black marker or paintpen
- A white marker or paintpen
- A sticky notepad
- 2 leather cords
How To
Take a leaf or two and draw animal faces on them. You can even make a pair: how about a cat and a mouse?
Make pairs or groups of your animal leaves to tell a little story! For example, many of these leaves lend themselves to being made into baby birds. Draw googly eyes with the white and black marker, then add a beak.
I Look at You and You Look at Me
I’ll help you set the scene for the story: take your brown leather cord and lay it across your paper to form a tree limb to let the birds sit on. One of the birds is just beginning to hatch! Take a larger, brown leaf and cut it at an angle so that it looks like the baby bird is coming out of it. Now it looks like one of the baby birds is learning to fly! Take 2 smaller leaves and glue them to his back. What happens in the rest of your story about these baby birds?
One Never Knows What Creatures are Swimming in the Deep of the Sea
For this story, you’ll need to make a bunch of fish from your pressed leaves! Rotate them so that the stem is pointing either left or right. With your markers, draw eyes and fins. Then, add decorative scales to your fish. Lay down your piece of blue leather cord for the surface line of the water. Look at how many creatures are already swimming there! For a spin on the story, drop a fishing rod down into the water and see what happens…
For a fun matching game, pair up your fish! Glue each one on a sticky note and have your little one pair up the fish that are looking left with the fish that are looking right.
Want even more leaf crafting ideas? You could frame your favorite leaves, or make a flip-book with your favorite leaf characters. Happy Crafting!