Autumn Leaf Decorations that last more than a day.

Autumn is one of my favourite times of year. I love to walk through the park as the leaves fall and the sun shines through bright seasonal colours. I often collect leaves and imagine all sort of decorations for the home. Unfortunately they crumble quickly in the central heating and are left forgotten, broken and brown on the balcony. So this year I decided to find ways of keeping the memory of autumn leaves in my home longer.

I have been playing around with wax in recent weeks and we thought it would be fun to try to coat the leaves with wax. Unsure of what the result would be, we steamed ahead with an improvised candle melter. We put white candle wax in an old jam jar, put it in a pot of hot water on the cooker and watched it melt slowly. Then we put the hot wax in a litre sized plastic bucked to do the dunking.


We carefully dipped each leaf and lay it on cardboard to dry. This is quite dangerous and needs lots of supervision.

Dipping a Leaf in Hot Candle Wax

Then we simply tied the leaves to a piece of string and hung them from a lamp. Lovely.

Even a few days later the leaves look great and aren’t falling apart. They look like they may last all year.


On another day, we spent some time looking at the different shapes of the leaves and we drew around a few different ones on coloured paper. We cut them out, folding the paper a few times to make the process quicker. Then I stuck them to string to hang by the windows. The result is a simple paper decoration to cheer the windows up on dreary days.

Paper Leaves Cheering up my WIndow

Painting on Paper Towels and an Opportunity for Mama to Practice Allowing the Toddler to Create his Own Art!

I love using different materials for painting. Kitchen paper towels are great for mixing colours and watching it spread over the patterns. So one lovely warm afternoon, I thought it would be fun to paint on the balcony. We headed out with kitchen roll, watered down paint, some brushes and a few other items to play with. I was looking forward to watching some abstract art develop, but the art was not what I had expected.

Our Equipment

Paint Mixed with Water

For a change of angle, I hung the paper squares from a piece of string tied between two chairs. Glass jars held the paint and we had extra pots around for mixing. 

Hanging Paper Towels

I was pleased with the arrangement and looking forward to seeing what B would do and the art he would produce.

He loved the colours in glass pots and having more pots to pour into. I had also put a large bucket of water outside so he made more and more and more (mess!).

Pouring

Poking

Splashing

He went on and on and on. Pouring, splashing, mixing all the paints into different tubs. But what about the paper? My wonderful hanging arrangement was being ignored! I really wanted him to try splashing the paint onto the paper, or flicking it, or dripping it, anything.

More mixing

More colours

However, he was having so much fun, I didn’t want to interrupt him. I hate to break his concentration.

Concentrating on pouring carefully

After a while I splashed a little paint on the paper myself. "Look at this," I said. He said, “hmm” and carried on with what he was doing. So I left him to it. The cars got involved as usual. And everything ended up in the bucket at some point. 

Paper Towels Empty of Art

Mixed Colours on the Floor

So even though it wasn’t the painting activity I had envisioned, he enjoyed a long afternoon playing with water and created some interesting patterns on the floor. I was disappointed that he didn't share my enthusiasm about the hanging paper, but he did:

• Mix colours over and over to discover more colours
• Pour liquid carefully, and sometimes not so carefully, into different pots
• Step over and around things as he moved around the area
• Explore the fundamentals of volume as he tipped paint from one pot to another

More Painting with Cars

Our first painting with cars activity was a brilliant success. B added more and more paint to the masterpiece each time we came back to it and discovered new ways to move the cars, the paint and himself. It was also a great way to explore colours. Just before we washed the plasic canvas, we went a little crazy with the paint.

On this day, he chose red and green paint. As we sat down with our equipment - paint, cars and plasic sheet - I asked spontaneously: would you like to sqeeze the paint bottle? Well, of course yes. Normally I do that part, but I thought it would be a nice change for him and I was right.

The Big Squeeze of Paint

It was lovely to see him so focussed on getting paint out, and I was so busy taking photos, that I forgot to say stop! 

We ended up with a huge blob of red paint which he drowned his cars in.

Car completely covered in paint

Some wonderful tracks made by cars

Often, he doesn’t like to get too messy, but once all his cars were drenched, and his hands covered, and after he slipped and we laughed so much, he didn’t seem to mind. 

The big blue bus always gets a look in

A terrible accident? Only with a bottle of paint

And then it was time for a slide

The clean up was a family effort. We carried all paint covered items, including a messy toddler, outside to be cleaned off with hot soapy water. And so the fun continued. It took a while, but soon everything was clean enough, and B dry enough to come inside to hunt for footprints and dots of red paint on the floor. With a wet wipe in hand he managed to remove most of it. (Aren’t  wet wipes fantastic for this sort of thing?) The activity took up the whole morning and we were more than ready for a long midday rest.

B had a wonderful time painting with his favourite toys and built on the skills he had started when we first did this activity. I hope that he was able to connect his ideas and stories as we didn't clean his 'canvas' between sessions.