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nature crafts

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nature

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Gather up some green leaves and use a roller or press to create natural stamp art. Follow these steps to stamp on canvas, or use the same technique to print lovely leafy cards.&nbsp;

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Gather the materials to make your DIY banner. 

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Start by collecting some of your favorite leaves. Look around your house or campsite to find some different shaped leaves. Remember not to pick them off of trees, only off the ground!

Don't pick the ones that are completely dried out as they will crumble as you try to paint them.

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Cut out several canvas squares, large enough to fit your leaves. You can also try different shapes, such as triangles or a flag shape like we did.

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You may want to cover your work surface for the next few steps. Squeeze some paint into your paint cups or paper plate. Using the spouncer, cover a leaf with an even layer of paint.

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Press the leaf, paint side down, onto the canvas. 

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Lay another piece of scrap canvas over the leaf and use the paint roller to roll over the leaf and transfer the paint. The extra layer of canvas helps to keep the leaf flat and in place as you roll over it.

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Carefully lift the canvas and the leaf. You should have a cool leaf imprint on the flag! If the imprint looks faint, you can experiment with adding a thicker layer of paint or pressing down harder with the roller. Getting the perfect imprint will take a couple tries.Repeat steps 4–6 until you finish all the flags for your banner.

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Once your paint is dry, use glue or tape to attach your flags onto a piece of ribbon. Now you can hang your leaf stamping art anywhere you and enjoy your nature-themed decoration! 

paint

canvas (or cloth)

Scissors

ribbon

hot glue/hot glue gun (or fabric glue)

paint roller

paint cup (or paper plate)

spouncer

Leaf Stamping

craft

indoor project

Thanksgiving crafts

Thanksgiving

fall

household craft

easy craft

This year we wanted to make our family's place card holders for Thanksgiving feel festive and fun. Using a folding technique, we were able to create beautiful leaves and created a colorful and unique place card holder for everyone.

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Leaves: First, fold your paper in half vertically, and cut a "U" shape.

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Then accordion fold your paper upwards, and with every fold cut the end with your scissor. 

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Once you are finished folding your paper, open it back up, and cut down the center line. 

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Accordion fold the two pieces of paper up, and glue together to make a leaf shape. You can finesse the shape by creating a mini fan. Tie and glue a piece of string at the bottom of the leaf to create a stem. 

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Stands: Glue one cork to one block. Let it dry. Once dry, paint the cork gold, and the wooden block brown.

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Then glue a paper leaf onto one side of the wooden block. 

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Wire: If you are using wire, ask a grown-up assistant to use wire cutters to cut a 5-inch long strand. Poke the wire or paper clip into the cork. Curl one end into a circle. This will be where you place your notecard.

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Display! Write down the names of the guests at your Thanksgiving table and set up the cardholders.

string

Glue

cork

paint brush

colored paper

Leaf Place Card Holders

painting

quick craft

With fall around the corner and brisk air upon us, we decided to create nature-inspired paintbrushes! All you need are some leaves, twigs, twine, and your creativity.

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Take a walk outside and find different kinds of branches / leaves to make your paint brushes.

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Bundle the leaves to wrap around one end of a branch. 

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Hold the bundle of leaves and the branch with one hand, and wrap your string to secure the leaves onto the branch. 

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Securely tie the string with a double knot! We created an assortment of leaves with findings from different trees.

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Once you have made all your leaf paintbrushes, test them out with some paint! What kinds of textures do they create? Which type of brush is your favorite? 

branches

string / twine

cup (for water)

watercolor paper

Leaf Paintbrushes

adventure

outdoor activities

Ah, another "let's roam the woods" activity! My kids love the wandering, the exploring, the discoveries...and I love seeing my children delight in all their fantastic finds (tree pods! caterpillars!). Here is a lovely bit of art for displaying favorite discoveries.

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Our family had a day of playing in our nearby mountains planned and I had a few exploring ideas in mind, so I tossed into my pack a few different colors of yarn.  The only other things we would need would be found by roaming the paths and sides of the stream...

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While Trev and my husband hunted for and and collected firewood, Madeleine and I wandered, looking for things that interested us. Every few minutes, my daughter would exclaim, "Oooh, look, Mama, I found some (fill in the blank: moss/berries/grass/pretty leaves!)" 

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When we were very pleased with our collection and had found some Y-shaped sticks, we went back to our table to make our art.

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We wound yarn around the open part of our sticks...

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...tied off the yarn, and wove in our treasures.

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I asked Maddie what her favorite part of this project was. "All of it," she said.  "But did you like looking for things to add, or making something pretty...?" I asked.  "All of it!  I liked all of it," she reiterated.  Yes--roaming the woods together, talking and uncovering, then creating something beautiful... she's right.  All of it. All of it is our favorite. 

yarn

Y-shaped stick

Nature Hunt Treasure Stick

It never fails: my children find a walking stick every single time we go on a nature walk. I don't know where this love came from, but it's pretty cute. On this day we decided to make our sticks extra special.

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First we thought we would paint parts of our sticks, but we loved the way the yarn looked and decided to cover the entire sticks with just yarn. You could do either or both.

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First, I tied one end of the yarn to each stick and handed it off to the kids. 

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They wrapped and wrapped. My little one needed help with this step.

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They came out so beautifully, and the kids were excited to get exploring with their new "magical" walking sticks!

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This was just another reason to stay outside exploring and playing with the best tools we have--our imaginations.

found sticks

Nature Trail Walking Stick

tree

flowers

spring

Take a nature walk to find some fallen branches to upcycle into beautiful blooming spring cherry trees.  We used tissue paper to make the blooms. This is a great way to bring spring inside!

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First, we assembled our supplies. We took a walk in the woods to collect the branches from the ground. (We looked for branches with lots of offshoots.)  Inside, we cut squares of tissue paper and found a large vase.  We added some clear stones to the bottom of the vase for weight, as the branches are quite tall and we didn't want them to fall over.

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I showed my kids how to turn the squares into a flower.  Here is my 8 year old demonstrating. Hold the square flat.

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Press your thumb into the center of the tissue paper.

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Fold all of the edges of the tissue paper around your thumb. Press it as close to your thumb as you can.

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Pull your thumb out and twist the bottom of your flower to make it stay in position.

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Ta da! You have an easy tissue paper flower.

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Make lots of tissue paper flowers. We experimented, using two sheets of tissue for some, blending some of the colors together, etc.

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Next, heat up your glue gun. I use a low temperature glue gun and supervise my kids with it. We review safety first: don't touch the point of the glue gun or the hot glue. My 4-year-old did not want to use the glue gun so I had him lay the flowers next to the branches where he wanted them placed, and I glued them for him.

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Put a dab of glue on the bottom of the flower and press it to the branch for a few seconds. 

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We talked about how blooming trees look, with the blossoms spaced out, with none at the base, where the branch would connect to the tree.

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One technique that worked well was wrapping part of the tissue paper around the branch, after putting a dot of glue in the fold of the paper.

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I love having them displayed in a vase on our mantle.  Happy Spring, everyone!

fallen tree branches

Tissue Paper

hot glue gun

large vase

Blooming Cherry Trees

rainbows

rainbow craft

These bright rainbows are fun from start to finish! Grab glue and a piece of cloth, then head out to the garden to gather a few of nature's offerings.

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We think this craft is lovely on plain, very light fabric, but you could use paper, if you like.

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Madeleine and I grabbed my pruning tool, and into the backyard we went.
It was a simple matter to find a straight twig a bit longer than the width of our cloth.

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We took it to the patio table, and Madeleine decided if she wanted the fabric to lay visible over the front of the cloth, or tucked around the back.  She chose the back.  We laid down the stick and she added glue,

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then she folded the edge of the fabric over to secure it.

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Now we got to gather flowers for the rainbow!  So fun to go scouting for pretties.

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Soon she had everything--red, orange, yellow, green, blue, and violet.

23 at-home nature walk projects for kids

Screen-free fun!