Autumn crafts

Who else knows this feeling? After a lovely autumn walk, my bags are overflowing with my children's collected treasures. Theirs, too, of course. But what am I supposed to do with them all? Throwing them away is out of the question. So, it's time to get crafty. No other season offers us as much "material" for creativity as autumn. Besides all the colorful leaves, there are chestnuts, nuts, acorns, pine cones, moss, twigs, and so much more.

In today's blog post, we want to show you what we think are the most beautiful and easiest craft ideas that your kids can easily make themselves with minimal help. I've tried them all with my three-year-old daughter, and they had a blast. Yours, Dani

The leaf hedgehog:

Those who follow our Instagram stories may have already seen the video tutorial. Here we show each step again.

We need:

1. Brown construction paper
2. Many colorful leaves
3. A googly eye
4. Pen
5. Scissors
6. glue

Let's go:

1. Draw a hedgehog's body on your brown construction paper.
2. This will now be cut out. Please help your child if they are not yet confident using scissors.
3. Now the entire back of the hedgehog can be thickly coated with glue.
4. Now comes the best part: the previously pressed leaves can now be pressed onto the hedgehog. If there are still a few holes, carefully touch them up again with the glue stick and more leaves.
5. To prevent our hedgehog from wandering blindly through the forest, it's now time for the eye, which is also glued onto the hedgehog's head with a glue stick.
6. If you like, you can now draw a nose and a mouth on your hedgehog.
7. The hedgehog is already finished!

Chestnut garland

A garland is of course a must at every beautiful autumn festival.

For our autumn garland you will need:

1. Chestnuts
2. Wooden beads in the color of your choice
3. A nylon thread
4. A chestnut drill bit

Let's go:

1. First, drill a hole (all the way through) in the center of each chestnut using a drill bit.
2. Now cut the nylon thread to your desired length. Add an extra 2 x 10 cm at both ends for the loops for hanging.
3. Tie the first loop and attach a bead to the beginning of the loop as a "stopper".
4. Now the children's part begins. It will now alternate between:
   Chestnut, bead, chestnut, bead, ... strung together. Or in an order that you and the children like.

We worked with two different colored wooden beads in white and orange.

5. Finally, the second loop is knotted with a bead at the end. The garland is finished!

The autumn tree

My favorite craft project this fall was the colorful tree.

You will need:

1. Lots of colorful, pressed leaves (we used different leaves from different trees – that makes everything even more colorful)
2. Brown construction paper (trunk)
3. Construction paper as a background (we used blue)
4. An adhesive film
5. Brown tracing paper
6. Scissors
7. glue
8. Pen

Let's go:

1. Start by drawing a trunk on your brown construction paper; the trunk should reach almost to the middle of your background paper.
2. This can now be cut out – but be careful: we only need the negative of the trunk, i.e., just the outline. The middle of the trunk must be cut out. Please help your children with this, as this cut is not entirely easy.
3. Now the trunk is placed on the rolled-out adhesive film with the "nice" side facing down and pressed firmly.
4. “Snippet alert”: The brown tracing paper can now be torn into small pieces and then pressed onto the adhesive film in the middle of the trunk.
5. Once the log is filled, we cut away the excess adhesive film. The easiest way to do this is to carefully trim the very outermost edge of the log.
6. The finished trunk is now glued onto the lower half of the colored background construction paper.
7. Now the entire upper half of the picture can be rubbed with glue, i.e., the treetop.
8. The pressed leaves are now carefully pressed onto the construction paper. Be careful, as the leaves are always very thin and fragile after pressing.
9. We set aside the most beautiful leaves first and glued them onto the still somewhat bare areas at the end.
10. The colorful autumn tree is finished!

Forest Owl:

Of course, no autumn forest would be complete without an owl.
For this you will need :

1. Pressed leaves
2. Orange construction paper for the belly
3. Brown construction paper for the eyes
4. White construction paper for the eyes
5. Red construction paper for the beak
6. Two googly eyes
7. A pen
8. A pair of scissors

Let's go:

1. First we need a few circles:

• Draw a large circle on orange construction paper (we used the size of our cereal bowl)
• Two brown circles in brown (we used the lid of a NUK bottle as a template for this).
• Two small circles on white paper (we used a two euro coin to help).

2. Now add a small triangle for the beak on the red paper.
3. Now you can cut it out; please help your children if they are not yet very good with scissors.
4. First, the leaves are glued to the right and left sides of the large, orange circle - these will be the wings of the owl.
5. Next come the eyes. First, stick the brown circles onto the orange circle on the upper half. If they're above the leaf wings, that's no problem at all.
6. Now stick the white circles in the middle of the brown eyes.
7. As a final step, glue the googly eyes in the center of the white circles.
8. Now, the red triangle is glued under the eyes to form a beak.
9. If no glue is sticking out or running, you can now turn your owl over; if not, please let it dry first. Now glue two small leaves to the bottom. To do this, rub glue onto two leaves up to the middle – very carefully, the leaves break very easily.
   As a final step, the leaves are glued halfway onto the lower back side, so that the other half extends downwards.
10. The owl is finished!

Feel free to write to us if you would like to see more autumn craft ideas or if you have any new suggestions.

We hope you have fun trying it out.