Create an Autumn Tree Door With Your Kids!

My girls have been so excited about the leaves that continue to fall and cover our grass! It occurred to me that I could do a craft with them that would use real leaves and they’d probably love it. I started with Pinterest and I found a ton of beautiful projects involving leaves and resulting in gorgeous works of art that could be displayed proudly as part of our home decor. Then something else occurred to me. Those adorable projects were tricky, I would end up doing most of the work, and they’d be less fun for my kids. So, I put Pinterest away for another time, and I decided to get basic and do something that my kids could thoroughly enjoy.

So today I present to you our fabulous autumn tree door 🙂

We started by gathering leaves (you might be surprised how much fun this was for my 3 year old!)

Next, I got to work flattening the leaves. You do this with waxed paper, some other paper (I used paper lunch bags), and an iron & ironing board.

I did this for several leaves, and then I decided that I didn’t care if the leaves were perfectly flat- this was for fun! I wasn’t entering a front door decorating contest! (Sometimes it’s hard to let go of perfectionism ;))

Next it was time to create the tree. We didn’t have a roll of brown paper- we had orange. So, why not make this even more fun?! We got out the brown paint & a huge paint brush & got to work painting that big piece of paper!

When the paint was dry, I flipped the paper over and drew the outline of our Fall tree. Then I cut it out and put pieces of rolled masking tape all over the back of it.

This made it super easy to apply to the front door, and my 3 year old did an excellent job 😉

So, if you’re going for a more polished look, you could iron all of your leaves between wax, or you could even laminate them (which would make them re-usable). I ended up just choosing the flattest leaves from the bag and using those 😉

Next, I cut pieces of double sided tape (I had some foam stuff from the dollar store) and put them on the back of the leaves.

We saved these for when my 6 year old got home from school, and then we went to town decorating the tree. (Again, you might want to step away from the tree and your perfectionism, and let your kids have at the leaf placement 😉

They’re so proud of our creation!

How often do you let go of your perfectionism and let your kids go crazy with their own project?

You can find more fun Fall  and Hallowe’en  kids’ craft and activity ideas at my blog, Raising Memories.

For more ideas on how to keep little fingers busy this Fall, check out this fabulous post:

AUTUMN ACTIVITIES FOR KIDS