Leaves + sticks + some creativity = a pretty wall hanging

This started out as a simple leaf rubbing activity. We chose a variety of leaves and put them under paper and rubbed over the paper with chalk and crayons. We also tried white crayons and did a watercolour wash over them to add a bit of variety.

Later, I cut out the leaves and cut out some of the stems and leaf vein markings with a craft knife.

I then invited the kids back to glue tissue paper onto the backs of the leaves. A runny glue applied with a brush was better than a glue stick in this case because the paper leaves were a little delicate and the glue stick tended to cause the leaf to rip.

We then wrapped a stick with some wool and attached the leaves. A word of advice would be to leave the ball of wool sitting on the table and rotate the stick in order to wind the wool around the stick rather than holding the stick still and winding the ball of wool around it. If the stick is long, it can be tricky to wrap wool around it PLUS keeping an even tension meant that the wool wrapped more neatly when I rotated the stick. Try it and see what I mean

This looked really pretty on the wall but could also hang from a window. The leaves looked a bit like stained glass!

#stainedglass #wallhanging #leafrubbing #naturecrafts #autumncraft #fallcraft #springcraft