Showing posts with label autumn craft. Show all posts
Showing posts with label autumn craft. Show all posts

20.11.18

Leaf art using paper plates

hen - leaf fall crafts

turkey craft thanksgiving leaf art

We have done a fair bit of leaf art over the years, but this is a little different because we've used paper plates as a base for the leaves, and this helps so much with the shape of the birds. A lot easier for little makers too.

We pressed our leaves so they're flat to work with and last longer. The downside is they lose some of their vibrant colour and can sometimes be brittle, but it is lovely to be able to keep your leaf art - we still have a butterfly I made with Daisy about 6 years ago!

There's lots of advice online about the best ways to press leaves - ours isn't very scientific! We just arranged them between some sheets of newspaper and put the newspaper under a rug in the kitchen for about a week. Seemed to work okay..
Just make sure you have plenty of leaves and they're different colours and shapes.

For the Thanksgiving Turkey, cut a small section off the bottom of a paper plate.


Then start with the top of the fantail, arranging your leaves along the outer edge of the paper plate so you can't see any white. Think about your colours, it is worth spending a few minutes arranging your leaves into colour piles. We started with reddish orange leaves, then a row of green and then red point leaves and finally yellow. So a darker turkey body would stand out.
Once you've decided on your rows of leaves - brush a good layer of PVA glue onto the paper plate and stick the leaves down - you will probably need to brush a little glue on the overlapping leaves too.







Find a big leave for the turkey body and a smaller one for the head - make sure they stand out against the fantail.

We used small red leaves for the turkey wattle and cut a small triangle for the beak. If your turkey body is light enough you could draw on eyes with a pen, but if it's dark like ours, then use a hole punch to cut two small circles out of a light coloured leaf and colour in the pupils with a black pen.

Rub a bit of glue stick or brush a very thin layer of glue on the Turkey's face, wet your finger to make it easier to pick up the little leaf pieces, and stick them in place.




Put your Turkey plate collage under a book or tray to press it down. Our turkey looks rather dwarfed by its enormous fantail!!

The hen  is based on our recent paper plate hen project. Remove about a third of the plate by cutting away a curved piece from the top, like so. This will give you your basic hen shape.



Brush your paper plate with a good layer of glue and cover the whole thing with overlapping yellow and greenish leaves. You may need to brush more glue on overlapping leaves.


We found oak leaves were great for the hen's fluffy plumage at the back. Let your leaves go over the edge of the plate to cover the line and to give a more fluffy, feathery look. If too much leaf goes over the edge, you can always give it a trim.

You can keep going, but we put our hen under a book to press for a while, before moving onto the wing and head stage.

Chose a nice big leaf for the wing - find some small colourful leaves and arrange and glue them under the edge of the big leaf, before adding to your hen.



Use some thin pointy red leaves for the hen's comb and arrange and glue them underneath the top of the head. Fine a yellow/orange leaf with a strong pointy end for the beak and stick this underneath too (cut away the part of the leaf you don't need).




Use small red leaves for the wattle, trim if you need to, and glue this just under the beak.

Use a black pen to draw on an eye.






30.10.17

Spooky bat leaf decorations


bat leaf


This is a very quick and easy Halloween craft idea that makes use of colourful autumn leaves. We collected leaves that were a sort off maple-leaf shape (field maple, acer, sycamore even ivy leaves)  - definitely not hard to find once you start looking!

1. Then just one cut - to snip off the middle pointy part of the leaf, like so. Curve the cut a little, for bat ears.




2. Keep the stalks on for instant ‘flying’ bats (like the first photo), and glue on paper eyes and fangs (see step 4).

3. The leaves will quickly start to curl once they’re inside, so if you want them to last longer, press for a few days after you've cut them.

If you don’t have a flower press, put the leaves between the pages of an old book and then place a pile of books on top.

Once they’re pressed they’ll be flat, but more brittle, so need to be handled with some care.

4. For the eyes and fangs, we cut small, long triangles from some plain paper. Rub glue stick carefully over the head part, where you want the eyes and fangs to go, then wet your finger to pick up the little triangles and stick them in place. Use a black pen to finish off the eyes.




To make them last a bit longer you could varnish the leaves with a clear, water-based varnish.



5. To make bat bunting, we glued our bats onto some flat gift-wrap ribbon. Stick them on near their heads, so they don’t tip forward. (I forgot to do this...)




bat bunting


You could make a Halloween collage with them too.