I love spring for its florals and optimism that warmer days are approaching. And I love autumn for its colours. The intense, warm colours with dashes of ochre, brown and hazel. The colours of fall make me feel warm, calm and cozy. One of the favourite activities for my daughter and I nowadays is to go for a walk outside looking for autumn treasures - pine cones, chestnuts, acorns, fall leaves... Afterwards, we often craft something together with our findings, maybe with a hot cocoa to warm ourselves. Sounds like the best way to spend the rainy and colder days ahead right?
So grab your warm socks, gather around the table with warm drinks and let's get crafty. Here are the top 10 autumn / fall time craft ideas that we enjoyed making in the past:
1. Acorn Bells
This is something I made with my workshop kids as well and it is an idea that has won many kids' creative hearts. You start off by decorating the acorns. I painted the acorns white so the kids have a white background to work with but if that is too much trouble, just leave it as it is or use clay to replace the acorn (see below). Once you are done making the acorns pretty, thread them through a long piece of wire along with a few jingle bells, and wrap the whole thing around a stick. I covered the bottom end with yarn /fabric so the kids don't get any sprinters. Who knew making musical instrument with acorns can be this much fun!?
2. Chestnut Shell Dish
Do you also find the chestnut shells fascinating? I don't know what it is, I like the spikiness, structure, colour... I like how they look so much that I actually have a few shells lying around the house as a nice décor items. In the photo below, I used the chestnut shell to hold 7 rainbow-coloured beans. It's a game to see how many beans you can transport from a table surface into the shell/dish using a pair of chopsticks. The time limit is 1 minute or less depending on how confident you are with using chopsticks. My daughter had fun playing the game and it also makes a fantastic party game!
3. Autumn-inspired Headbands and Hats
I am crazy about hats and any headwear really. If you go to my Instagram account, you'll see just how much I love them. I love making these wearable art and the fall leaves are one of the best natural (and free) material to work with. I usually dip the leaves in beeswax to retain colour and shape. Yes, it is impossible to maintain their original colours but by coating them with beeswax, you do manage to keep the colours in tact for a long-time.
4. Chestnut Tic-Tac-Toe
This next one may not need too much explanation, it's a simple game of tic-tac-toe that most of us grew up with. All you need to do is to paint the chestnuts with 2 different colours and make 5 for each colour. For the game board, I cut off the rectangular cover of the wooden wine gift box we had lying around in the house but of course, you can also use cardboard or hard stock paper.
5. Chestnutroom
Last year, my daughter and I went a little nuts over these so called "chestnutroms". They are chestnuts that are made to look like mushrooms... We literally mass produced them and the best part was, hiding them everywhere in the city of Delft (that's the city in the NL where we live) to make people chuckle. I like doing spontaneous and maybe a little meaningless things and looks like my little me is also into it. I'm sure we will be making more of these chestnutrooms this autumn.
6. Autumn Lantern
As the days get shorter, I love to create warmth in the house with some DIY lanterns. The one shown above is made with plastic bottle. My daughter glued different coloured transparent paper using a stick glue. The handle is a pipe cleaner and she thread through some glitter pony beads because "no sparkle, no crafting". The light source is IKEA LED candle. Below, you'll see another version that is made with paper plates. I cut out a big circle in the middle, covered the whole with a white transparent paper (you can also use a baking paper), and let my daughter paste some black shapes on top. I also made some holes using a hole puncher to let out more light. There is a LED candle attached to another paper plate and I stuck the two plates together to make the lantern. Doesn't it make you feel nice and cozy inside just looking at these warm lights?
7. Chestnut Pumpkins
This autumn craft activity that you can do with kids is super simple and it makes the perfect Halloween decoration. All you need to do is paint the chestnuts orange using an orange acrylic paint, puncture a hole at the top using an eyelet or a needle, and insert in a green pipe cleaner. Let your child, draw in the eyes and other face parts.
8. Pumpkin Milk Carton Hat
This pumpkin hat makes the best recycle craft idea. To make the base hat structure, go to my past blog article "[Step-by-step Instructions] How to Make a Simple Milk Carton Hat". Once you made the hat base using 2 milk cartons, all you need to do is attach strips of cardboard. Attach one end at the bottom and the other end at the top centre. Once that is done, attach a stem at the top centre and have your little one paint the whole thing! Might also be fun to draw in black spots and make your pumpkin hat look like Yayoi Kusama's artwork. Unfortunately, that idea was rejected by my daughter...
9. Autumn Wreath
I loved the process of making this autumn wreath with my daughter. We started off by going to a local park to find our fall treasures: chestnuts and different colour autumn leaves. We attached the leaves to a cardboard backing using just a normal glue stick. After that, I used my glue gun to stick the egg cups. My daughter used acrylic paints to paint the inside of the egg cups. We also decorated the egg cups with the byproduct of hole puncher (what do you call that?) Once the paints were dry, I used the hot glue again to attach the chestnuts. To finish, my daughter used a white acrylic marker to make patterns and added googly eyes to apparently represent our household. This is such a brilliant way to welcome the fall season and also your guests!
10. Autumn Leaves Butterfly Wings
Okay, let's agree that making a set of butterfly wings is always a BIG success with kids. I've made many butterfly wings in the past, both for my workshop and for my daughter & her friends. 100% satisfaction every time. This time, we decided to incorporate some fall elements by laminating some autumn leaves with sequins and other things that shine, because that is a must when crafting with my daughter. "Mama, it needs more sparkle and glitter" she would say. Once you have laminated the inside of your wings, glue them to your cardboard butterfly frame. My daughter then decided to colour her wings gold (we used POSCA marker) and of course, top it up with more shiny gems. Laminating the leaves will keep their colours longer, we made ours 2 weeks ago and they are still going strong.
Do you see any ideas that you like? Do let me know if you make any of these autumn kids craft ideas with your child(ren). Message me via Instagram (@collectionaise) or email (hello@collectionaise.com). Happy crafting everyone!
Love xx
Yoko