Leaf Crafts

Fall is starting to really kick in around here. Lots of leaves falling, lots of trees really changing color. We checked out Lois Ehlert's awesome book, Leaf Man, from the library and decided to make our own leaf people. To do this, we went on a long walk around our neighborhood, collecting all different kinds and shapes of leaves, looking for interesting colors and styles. The kids had a blast doing this, although I got very tired pulling them both in the wagon around our (very hilly) neighborhood. It's harder than you might think to pull 65 lbs of children up a hill in a wagon while trying to stop and pick up interesting leaves all along the way. Anyway, here's a photo of some of our leaf bounty!

It was also harder than I expected to attach the leaves to the paper. When leaves dry, they start to curl up, so you don't want them too dried out. But if they're wet, they also don't stick well either. (Ehlert talks about this problem at the very end of her book, when she talks about creating the artwork. Her solution was to find leaves and make color photocopies of them while they were still fresh and flat. Great solution but not so convenient or economical for us, as color copies are something like $1 per page! But an idea for a future activity perhaps, or for someone who owns their own color copier or scanner).

So, we started off with Elmer's glue and then I put wax paper over the leaf people and stuck a book on top so they would dry flat. R made the lady with a yellow leaf skirt. I made the little man, and then there's a baby (on the red paper) that R made. Note, if you can, that the princess is holding a flower (a really pretty-shaped leaf we found) and that the baby has red hair on top of his head.

In addition to making leaf people, we did leaf rubbings which was super fun, I really got into this. I just think they are SO pretty. R arranged them just so on the window for me and I had to talk her into letting some of the leaves hang upside down. In the picture below, you can also see a princess that R colored in next to the leaf queen--this is so that we have a whole family up there. After putting her up, R declared that the baby was a boy. So you can just guess who lines up with who on there!

As we move into October, we'll start adding more Halloween-y things to our window. We got that started with a foam sticker craft the kids did on Friday when we had their friends over for dinner and playing. You can see RUS's foam spider with stickers while R decorated a cat that isn't in the picture--it's on the right side of our window.

Grammie and Grampie also gave the kids some Halloween window clings so those are adorning the other set of kitchen windows, the kids had a lot of fun putting those up last night.