Colorful leaves, shiny conkers, and rustling foliage – autumn simply has a very special flair. A walk in the fall is a special highlight for children, because among the conkers, acorns, autumn leaves, and other things, you'll find all sorts of natural materials to collect and craft with. If you approach autumn with your eyes open, you'll hardly be able to avoid craft ideas. And the many autumn events like St. Martin's Day, Halloween, and Thanksgiving also offer welcome opportunities for crafting fun with your little ones. To make autumn crafts with children fun for you as parents, too, and to ensure you achieve great results with your crafts, we have three creative craft projects for you and your kids.
DIY with natural materials: Autumn crafts with children
Crafting with children is a wonderful way to make autumn decorations from natural materials like chestnuts, acorns, and the like in just a few easy steps. On a lovely walk with your parents, you can take advantage of nature's treasures and gather crafting materials. Even young children will come up with a few craft ideas, because autumn offers all sorts of things that, with a little imagination, can create the most amazing works of art. You probably already have pumpkin carvings for Halloween and a chic lantern for the St. Martin's Day parade on your crafting list. We have a few craft ideas for you and your children that go beyond chestnut men and the obligatory window decoration made of autumn leaves.
#1 Wind and light chime
What you need:- Beautiful, colorful glass marbles
- Acorns with hat
- A needle
- Wool or sturdy yarn
How it works:
Let the autumn leaves rustle and take a trip into nature. For this beautiful autumn decoration idea, you should look for large, solid trees: the oak tree. Among the colorful autumn leaves, you'll find the oak fruits, the acorns, which we'll need later for our crafts. Make sure the acorns have their caps.
Once you get home, you and your children will carefully remove the acorn cap from the nut. Thread the yarn or wool onto the needle and carefully pierce the cap to create a hanging loop. Then comes the difficult part. Let your children find the right cap for the marbles and glue the whole thing in place. Hang the light displays in different lengths from a branch or beam and watch as the sunlight refracts the light, creating beautiful patterns and rainbows.
#2 Magical leaf light
Autumn, with its cool, golden days, thunderstorms, and rustling leaves, is the perfect invitation to curl up on the sofa and listen to stories by candlelight. A lovely craft idea for bringing autumn into your home or onto your balcony is to create artwork made from autumn leaves, which children naturally find everywhere in the fall. But be careful: Parents should always keep an eye on leaves and fire, especially with small children, to ensure that what starts out as fun doesn't turn into disaster.
What you need:
- Colorful autumn leaves, beautiful large leaves
- Balloons
- Glue (or alternatively flour and water)
- tea lights
How it works:
Gather a collection of beautiful, large, colorful autumn leaves. Look for trees like maples and oaks, which have large leaves that are great for crafts. Clean the leaves and lay them out. Blow up the balloons—not too big, because you don't want to make lanterns, but rather a leaf light. Now comes the fun part: Have your children coat the balloons with glue and stick the leaves halfway on. Add another layer of glue on top and let the whole thing dry thoroughly. Once the glue has hardened, the kids can carefully pop the balloons. You'll be left with a bowl of colorful leaves, into which you can now place a tea light. Parents should light the balloons to keep everything intact.
#3 Autumn crafts for small children: Craft ideas with watercolors
Autumn crafts with young children can be quite a challenge. Many instructions for great craft ideas are too complicated for children or require a lot of help from parents. That's why we've specifically looked for ideas that are easy to implement even for very young children and don't require any special products. With our craft ideas, the little ones can concentrate on searching for conkers and pine cones, and stones also offer a great surface for ideas and colors. And for more complicated autumn crafts, like an owl-shaped lantern, there's still plenty of time in kindergarten.
What you need:
- stones
- chestnuts
- pine cones
- leaves
- Watercolors
- Paint brush
How it works:
When crafting with chestnuts, leaves, and more, the most important thing is that your children enjoy collecting. The colorful autumn crafts can then begin at home. Let your children find their flow and contribute their own ideas. Perhaps they want to paint the chestnuts brightly and sprinkle them with glitter, or print on fabric with the collected leaves. Giving children space for creativity and their own ideas while crafting encourages independence and at the same time produces a wealth of works of art, window decorations, and pictures that everyone can enjoy. Sit back and watch your little artists breathe new life into the collected treasures with great ideas using just a few craft supplies.
Maybe until now, you thought that autumn crafts with children were a complicated undertaking, one that left parents sitting there alone, struggling to make their children's leaves. With our creative ideas, autumn crafts become a cozy experience for the whole family. Have fun crafting! We look forward to seeing pictures of your creations!
