Nature Walk = Leaf Crafts Galore!

Sharing Saturday is still open! Please stop by to share your child-oriented crafts and activities and to see this week's features or just to be inspired by all the amazing ideas already shared!!

The other day Hazel and I went on a short nature walk with the intention of collecting some autumn leaves for crafts. Since it has been raining so much, we observed many mushrooms. We have been trying to decide which ones would make the best fairy houses. What do you think? We also noticed these green seed pods on our neighbors trumpet bush. We thought they looked like green bananas and found them rather interesting.

While picking up leaves, Hazel noticed that the oak leaves have a soft and fuzzy back whereas the maple and a few others do not. I noticed that the oak leaves were mostly brown or green. Now only one neighbor has an oak tree and almost every neighbor has a maple so our choices for oak are limited. 

I recently read on Gingerbread Snowflakes that you can preserve the colors of leaves with Mod Podge. Have I mentioned lately how much I love Mod Podge? So that night while Hazel slept, I painted each one with Mod Podge and left them to dry overnight. The result is slightly shiny leaves (even though I used a matte finish) that still have all their beauty. Hazel was better this year at picking up prettier and not so dry leaves though a few dry ones made their way in our bag.

Today we had fun making some crafts. When we were picking up all the red, yellow and orange (though not too many orange ones around) leaves we thought how they reminded us of a fire, so we decided to make a leaf fire picture. I cut Hazel some brown strips and gave her some glue and a piece of black paper and she made a beautiful leaf fire.  She also used glue and made a leaf man who has berries for eyes and an acorn--not sure what it is for. Though I guess accurately it is a leaf woman since she was describing some parts of it as she made it. I also cut a paper plate in a spiral and had her glue on some leaves so we can hang it like a mobile and let it spin to look like falling leaves. She used a lot of glue so it will take awhile to dry. 

Our final craft was a wreath. I used a straw wreath I bought ages ago and wrapped it with some ribbon I got a the dollar store. Then I stuck some of the leaves in the ribbon and I topped it with Hazel's craft from Lakeshore Learning the other week. It is an Indian corn welcome sign. They had the corn, husks and signs cut and she glued on pieces of tissue paper to be the kernels and then we decorated the welcome part. It is now on our door. Above is a close up of it.

I will save the rest of our crafts from today for another day. What nature crafts have you been up to? I know I'm finally getting in the fall mood here! And if you want more leaf craft ideas check out these posts (mostly from last autumn)!