An Easy Fall Project

It might have been the increasing number of leaf decoupages and sticker collages coming home in her backpack. It could have been C asking to paint a pumpkin for the 27th time this week. Either way, I realized this week I should probably dig deep and offer this kid some crafting action. She’s ready. Yesterday I originally set out to do this with her. She’s had a possibly alarming thing for fire and candles lately, so I pivoted to simple (safe)—hanging things from a stick. Hard to be simpler. For a fun fall activity, do this:

1. Have your kid collect some nice things from your yard. Try to edit this pile so you’re not hanging 5 lb. rocks or dead bugs. Try to do this step when they’re not looking.
2. Press the press-able things between wax paper (leaves, flowers, grass). You should make a sandwich that goes: towel (on a table, floor, etc.), wax paper, object for mummification (leaf), wax paper, towel.
3. Now hold a hot iron over the sandwich (over the top towel) for 10-20 second
4. Cut around items in the wax paper so they loosely resemble the shape of the item.
5. Use string and tape to affix items to a long stick (hang it horizontally on a window, wall, etc.). These items can be things you’ve cut out of wax paper, or, just straight tape and string on object (the shells in our example).
6. Admire

C is two and a half and helped with the collecting stuff part, the cutting things out part, helping to affix the tape, and telling me where to hang them. She’s particularly good at the telling me how to do things part. It was a 45 mins after school, only a moderate mess (see last picture) activity. Simple success.

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