Isn’t autumn just wonderful for crafting inspiration? We’ve done so many lovely craft activities already this season, and these simple leaf prints are perfect for combining nature play with an art activity to create a homemade masterpiece.
This is just one of the fun nature projects in my book, ‘A Year of Nature Craft and Play’ (co-authored with Becky Goddard-Hill). There’s an activity for every week of the year and it includes fun crafts, gardening, games, art and science experiments – perfect for inspiring kids to get creative with nature.
With so many fabulous leaves lying around, we thought we’d get the paints out and put them to good use. First job was to head out for a walk in the park to find some leaves in varying shapes and sizes.
After a good debate about which leaves were our favourites, and which ones might make good prints, the kids chose this selection.
We used white A3 paper to make our leaf prints, simply because that’s what we had in the craft box. It worked well with strongly coloured paints, although I do love the idea of using black paper with some super-bright neon paints too.
We painted one side of each leaf, then pressed it carefully onto the paper.
You do need to be a little bit careful when you press the leaves down, to avoid making them slide around too much. We found that peeling them off slowly left a better imprint from the leaf too.
Here are our finished leaf prints – what do you think?
This was a super-simple craft which needed hardly any preparation, I love how the kids could just let their imaginations loose with colour mixing, patterns and thickness of paint. We talked about how we might do it differently next time, and the kids want to try cutting out the leaves when they’re dry to make them into a mobile – sounds good doesn’t it!
If you’ve got an impressive leaf collection, you might also like to have a go at my mason jar lanterns.
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Such a fun Fall activity.
It’s been one of our favourites this season, I think the fact that it’s a bit messy just adds to the fun!
This looks like fabulous fun. I love the colours in your photos, they definitely show-off the season in all its glory. #chasingnature
Thanks Tara – nature just knows how to do colour doesn’t it?!
What a wonderful selection of leaves and the prints came out so amazingly well. Love the idea of using neon paint on black paper. I can imagine the results being quite impressive! Thank you for adding another wonderful post to #ChasingNature
I was quite surprised at just how much detail we got on the prints, even with tonnes of paint and little hands! We learnt that you can print the same leaf a few times before putting paint on it again too.
This looks like so much fun! I must have done something like this in school at some point, but I really can’t remember! I’ll have to try it with Esme when she’s a little bit older. She wouldn’t be all that bothered given her current age, and I’d look a little silly doing it by myself! Haha!
#ChasingNature
Ah it’ll be a fab one to do when she’s a little bit older – I can’t remember doing it at school either, we did lots of potato printing though!
That looks so much fun, and what a lovely piece of art when it’s finished! Thank you for linking up to #CraftingismyTherapy 🙂
Such a fun craft, we collected loads of leaves this year. I like the idea of a mobile…maybe a garland to hang on fireplace might be nice too. Thank you for linking up #craftingismytherapy
Ooh yes a garland would be brilliant!
I remember doing this as well when I was a kid. This is actually one of the reasons why fall was a much-awaited time for my little self back then. 🙂
Thanks for sharing!