Fall Leaf Art

When I was little, we would spend Thanksgiving weekend at my grandparents house, which was "up north" in Michigan. My grandpa loved his long walks out in the woods and I always loved to join him. We would explore trails as he would teach me about plants, animals and leaves. I always brought home souvenirs from the journey and my mom always wanted to craft with them. Sometimes we painted rocks, but others we made leaf art.

I wanted some one-on-one time with my 3 year old...we are in the middle of moving and it has been hard on him. So I took him out for a walk and we made some leaf art of our own!

Fall Leaf Art 

Items Needed:

Various leaves 
Wax paper
Paper towel
Crayons
Iron and ironing board
Towel
Potato peeler

After you collect your leaves from our walk, you can start by having the kiddo(s) pick out some fall colored crayons. My guy picked out orange, yellow, red, brown, dark blue, and purple. Crayons that are broken or ones that have the paper missing may be best, because you will be ruining them. 

Parents will need to complete the next step. Take the potato peeler and "peel" some flecks off of the crayons into a box or bowl (we used an old puzzle box top).

After you get enough of the flecks (I let my kiddo tell me "when" for each color). you can get the ironing area set up. Set up the ironing board and place a hand towel onto the board. You will need two larger pieces of wax paper. If you want to create more than one, you will want to tear off additional. 

Now, place the leaves onto one sheet of the wax paper in whatever design you want . Try to keep them towards the center. The next step was always my favorite part! Let your kids sprinkle the crayons onto the leaves and all over the paper. Make sure they stay closer to the center so the color doesn't leak out of the design. You can separate the colors so you have bursts of red and purples, etc...or mix them all together like we did.

Top the leaves and crayon flecks with the top piece of wax paper and then a piece of paper towel over that...

Parents will have to complete the next step. Run a warm iron over the paper towel...just one or two passes should do the trick. Then voila!! Art!!!

This kids craft always reminds me of my childhood...and my grandpa who is deeply missed around the holidays and always. I hope that my kids will someday pass this Thanksgiving tradition onto their kids :)

Happy Thanksgiving!!