She was so proud of this project that she wanted to hang it on her door immediately, explaining that it could dry just as well while hung up – hah!
A Window Fall Tree Craft for Toddlers
Of course, after George did the apple tree craft, he wants to do another one.
He goes in these streaks a lot. Often its with water activities… but he does it with painting a lot too.
This time its apple trees.
I usually try to switch it up a little so we don’t get bored, and hopefully to get him interested in another aspect or technique. But repetition is great for young kids.
So we made another fall tree craft. This time on the window!
This time we used contact paper and we made it a (very large) suncatcher window decoration!
With a piece of contact paper on the table, sticky side up (and taped down around the edge), George got busy making a collage with fall colored stuff. (Stuff means whatever I can find… this time it was yarn, tissue paper, scrap piece of paper, and glitter of course, all in greens, reds, yellows and oranges.)
He ripped and cut. Mostly cut because he’s a scissors fan.
The yarn was fun for him to cut (I remember when Henry had so much troubles with cutting yarn… didn’t seem to bug George at all. Oh, how they differ.)
It took awhile, but when we finally had the piece of contact paper pretty full and George was done, I topped it with another piece of contact paper to sandwich all the stuff inside.
With this kind of collage, its great to have gaps so it sticks together better. Also, adding glitter makes it hard to stick, so if you really want it to stick well, skip the glitter.
I cut very simple leaf shapes out of the sandwiched collage. Very simple. (No oak or maple leaves here… just simple leaves!)
I also cut a tree trunk out of two pieces of brown scrapbook paper and taped them on our window in the play room.
The boys then took turns adding a leaf to the tree with a piece of scotch tape (wow, kids get really excited about piece of tape)!
To be completely honest, this took several days to add the leaves because my kids don’t take turns very well… and well, there was a lot of fighting involved. So we stopped in the middle of it, several times.
But now we have a fun fall tree to have on the window for my favorite season!
Need more inspiration for fall tree crafts for the window? Check out my Pinterest board dedicated to just stuff for windows! Its one of my favorite Pinterest boards I have!
Autumn Leaves, 8×10 Pastel Painting – SOLD
Fall is my favorite season. The transition from the heat of summer and the blanket of green to the crisp mornings and bursts of yellow, gold, burgundy, purple, and and orange against the bright blue Colorado sky invigorates and inspires me.
This October has been unseasonably warm (thanks to El Niño or global warming?) and I’ve been lucky to take advantage of it. Everywhere I turn, there is the possibility of a new painting. I’ve watched my aspen tree turn from green to gold, the birds gathering the last of the seeds from the neighbors tree, and the cries of the blue jays wake me in the morning.
I’ve always felt a connection to nature, especially when I was growing up in the woods of Minnesota, but as a painter of nature, I feel an even deeper connection. Each day, I watch the trees and notice changes, I watch the flowers unfold, the bees collecting nectar, and I watch how the light changes with each season.
In this painting, I looked at the minute details of the leaves, the slight changes in color, the tips of the stems, the curvature as the leaf dried, the spots and flecks, lines and curves. Each leaf its own portrait.
It’s difficult to describe the wonder and amazement that I feel when I look at our natural world. The trees, birds, deer, and plants feel like friends. I hope you have had the opportunity to enjoy time outside too.
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Bringing Fall to the Desert… With a Fall Tree Painting
Let’s be real here for a moment… At 43 degree this afternoon, it doesn’t feel like fall here in Kuwait in the least. So when I told Gracen that today was the very first day of fall, she glanced out the window, furrowed her brow and said, “It certainly doesn’t look like fall!’ in an almost accusatory tone. Hah! Gotta love her spunk. I told her that she was right and that the desert is tricky when it comes to seasons, but back home in Canada, fall changes are beginning to happen. We read a stack of fall-themed books which seemed to help convince her, then decided to create a fall tree in celebration.
To make things interesting, I decided we’d make our own leaf stamps using a few of these wedged cosmetic sponges I brought over in our craft stash.
They were a bit tricky to cut and certainly don’t look neat and tidy once done, but I figured that would add to the ‘authentic’ look of the leaves.
Next up, we prepared our paint colours. Gracen offered up fall colour suggestions and together we used our primary coloured paints to create this palette.
With our supplies all ready to go, we got started with the part that Grae thought was pretty hysterical… A trunk and branches made using her arm and hand.
We were anxious to get started on adding the leaves, so we blasted the tree with my blowdryer for a few moments and we were set.
When Grae began adding leaves to the top of the tree, we were both surprised by how well our sponge stamps worked! The fact that they started out as wedges made them easy for her to grasp and she was able to get 4 or 5 beautiful leaves out of just one paint dip.
Before long, it was time to add falling leaves because ‘in fall, leaves fall… you know that, right Mama?’
The tree began filling out nicely and Miss G paid particular attention to using all of the colours equally.
Here’s what it looked like when she declared the masterpiece done. Beautiful, right?
She was so proud of this project that she wanted to hang it on her door immediately, explaining that it could dry just as well while hung up – hah!
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