Outdoor Nature Collages

This was my daughter's idea.  I gave her some scrap matte board and white glue and she went to town! Busy for about 1/2 hour.  Lately it has been difficult to get C into making things and this definitely sparked her interest. If it is "her idea" she is more likely to create...maybe it is just those 5 1/2 year olds? Be sure to check out all the beautiful nature collages below.

C easily gathered lots of nature around our yard to get her started.  The great thing about making a making an outdoor nature collage is that the supplies are endless...

C hard at work...

Here are all the lovely collages:

A dandelion sun and a leaf for a cloud.

This one is mine.

So simplistic, but Lovely.

Trees with green leaf clouds.

The outdoor show.

I love how simple the collages are.  We even attempted a stick sculpture in the lower left corner.  I loved making these too and I'm sure your children will love it because as you can see we had a blast!

What have you been creating with your kids outdoors?

Need More Flower Ideas?

Check out other Flower Inspired ideas below for Tinkerlab's Challenge.

This post is shared with: It's Playtime

Contact Paper Fall Leaf Garland

Contact paper is always FUN and I decided to preserve some Fall leaves with it and ended up creating a garland!  I think it turned out pretty!  It makes such a whimsical Fall decoration! Before putting the leaves on contact paper,  I pressed them in books to flatten them out for a few days.

When the leaves were flattened, I placed our leaves on the sticky side of the contact paper and then put another sticky sheet on top.  C is still fascinated with the "stickiness" of this paper!  Maybe I should have her just explore a sheet fro sensory sticky play?

Then, after sticking the two sheets together with the leaves between,  I cut around the leaves, leaving an edge around them.

Then, I punched two hole through the bottom part of all the leaves.  They kind of look like ghost leaves!

Next, I strung the leaves with yarn.  You could use a pretty ribbon too.  I'm sure there are other ways this garland could be spruced up? What do you think?  This garland looks really pretty against a window with the light shining through the leaves!!!

We've used contact paper quite a bit with many projects!  Check them out if you never have:

Contact Paper Nature Collage

Contact Paper Rose Window

Mother's Day Sun Catcher

So Easy Kaleidoscope!

I Love these New Contact Paper Projects from The Artful Parent:

Autumn Leaves Stained Glass

Flower Mandala

Fairy Wings

This post is linked to: Pinteresting Party, It's Playtime, Sunday Showcase, Craft schooling Sunday

What are your favorite projects to do with contact paper?

Bleeding Tissue Fall Leaves

We created Fall Leaves using bleeding tissue paper.  Bleeding tissue can be really cool when you want the colors to run on your paper! If you use non-bleeding tissue paper this project will not work!  Bleeding tissue can be purchased at most Arts and Craft stores and I've seen it online here.  For this project all you'll need is some bleeding tissue paper, scissors, white paper, newspaper, water, and a paint brush. Here is one of our finished bleeding tissue Fall leaves.

To begin,  cut out some leaf shapes from white paper.  Put your paper leaf shapes on newspaper to soak up any mess from the water.

Next,  tear or cut some bleeding tissue paper shapes that are Fall colors.  Also,  have some water in a dish and a paint brush.

To create the bleeding colors,  place pieces of the tissue paper on the white paper leaf and paint over them with a paint brush dipped in water.

After a while you'll notice the colors start to bleed from the tissue paper like paint.  You can overlap the tissue paper for a more mixed up color look.  I think it is a really AMAZING effect!  Here you can see the bleeding colors start to do their magic!

After putting all the bleeding tissue paper on and painting with water,  then let your leaf dry.  The leaves actually look pretty cool at this point.  If you like this effect better then the end result,  you could mix the water with glue and the tissue paper would adhere to the leaf paper!

When the leaves are dry, you can take the tissue paper off to reveal beautiful water color-ish Fall Leaves!
Here is one of our other finished leaves. They make GORGEUS Fall decorations!

We didn't throw away the tissue paper.  Check back on our next post to find out what we did with the scraps!!!!!!

Other Great projects done with Bleeding Tissue paper in the blogosphere:

DIY Wrapping Paper from Hands On: As We Grow

Bleeding Tissue Paper from Paint Cut Paste

Raindrop Collage from TinkerLab

Snowflake prints and Tie Dyeing T-shirts with Bleeding Tissue Paper from The Artful Parent

This post is linked to:

Monday Madness
Craft Schooling Sunday
No Time For Flashcards

Tie Dye Coffee Filter Fall Leaves

I'm so ready for the Fall colors.... so we decided to bring some beauty to our window a little bit earlier!!!  We created Tie Dye Coffee Filter Fall Leaves!!!   We did these leaves very much the same way as our Tie Dye Coffee Filter Easter Eggs.  All you need for this project are some coffee filters, water based markers in Fall colors (the ones that work the best are: Mr. Sketch Markers ), scissors, newspaper, water, and Metallic Markers.

First, create a simple leaf shape on your coffee filter.  To create variety,  I created some different sizes of leaves too.  Cut out the leaf and place it on layers of newspaper so the markers or water won't soak through to your table!

Now color the leaf shape with water based Fall color markers like brown , red, orange,  and yellow.  We made patches of colors rather than just one color.  You can leave a little white showing.

Here is an example of one leaf that C did.  Some were colored with smaller patches of color too.

After coloring,  make sure the leaf is placed on the layers of newspaper and spray with a mist over the leaf to make the colors run.  Don't put too much water or the colors will fade away too much! (C loves this process!)

After done spraying,  let the leaves dry for a few hours.  We let them dry over night.  

After the leaves were dry,  we used metallic markers to add veins to our leaves. Adding the veins gave the leaves  a finishing touch that they needed!

Here are our leaves again.  They make great sun catchers too! 

Happy Fall!

This post is shared with: It's Playtime, The Play Academy, Come Together Fall Fun,             Thanksgiving Link-up