We’ve got five easy fall craft projects that don’t require any special skills or tools, and are easy to do even if you don’t consider yourself a Martha Stewart-level crafter. From apple picking to pumpkin patches, plenty of Fall activities are outside the house to keep you and your little ones enjoying autumn outings until Thanksgiving. Still, whether you’ve already been to the pumpkin patch multiple times or it’s raining outside, there will be days when you need something to keep little hands and minds busy at home.
Happy crafting!
Pumpkin apple stamps
What you’ll need:
An apple
orange paint
green paint
black paint
adhesive googly eyes
brown and green pipe cleaners
paper
This is a great option for younger kids. Cut the apple in half and dry it well with a paper towel. Dip the inside of the apple in orange paint and then stamp on heavy paper. The print will look like a pumpkin: Do a few in a row to create your own little pumpkin patch. Add googly eyes to make the pumpkins come alive, or black paint to create jack-o-lantern faces. Glue on brown and green pipe-cleaner pieces for the stem and vine, or paint them on to complete the look.
Easy fall leaf suncatchers
What you’ll need:
Round white coffee filters
eye dropper or paintbrush
liquid watercolors or food coloring
These colorful leaves glow when the sun shines through them, making this easy fall craft project a pretty seasonal decoration for your windows. Cut out leaf shapes from the coffee filters: You can create your own leaf shapes, trace leaves from outside or even trace printable leaf shapes found online.
Using the eyedropper or paintbrush, apply the liquid watercolors by dripping multiple colors onto each leaf. If you don’t have liquid watercolors, you can dilute food coloring with a little bit of water. To keep the mess to a minimum and the colors vibrant, lay the leaves in a disposable aluminum foil pan while adding the watercolors. Allow them to dry on plastic wrap — be careful, they can be delicate when moving!
Once the leaves are dry, you can punch holes in them and hang them in front of windows, tape them to windows, or even put a piece of contact paper on the window, sticky side out, and affix the leaves to it.
Autumn leaf scavenger hunt
What you’ll need:
A Ziploc bag or brown paper bags
adhesive googly eyes
black Sharpie
pipe cleaners
OK, this one is a little more of an outdoor activity, but it can easily be done with the leaves piling up in your yard. Let your kids play leaf detectives and search out brown, yellow, red, orange, green and multicolored leaves. You can even add things like acorns and pinecones to the search.
Store their finds in a gallon ziploc baggie, or if you know your leaves, select brown lunch bags and designate each one for a different type of leaf — maple, oak, etc. Alternatively, you could find pictures or templates of different leaf types online and glue them to each paper bag before sending the kids to hunt them down. If you want to turn the leaves into a craft afterward, we love adding googly eyes and pipe cleaners to them to create little “leaf people.”
Easy fall tree luminaries
What you’ll need:
Mod Podge
paintbrush
red, yellow and orange tissue paper
Mason jar
brown cardstock paper
votive candle or tealight
I was afraid this would be a little too much for my almost three-year-old, but she loved it from start to finish. Begin by tearing the tissue paper into small pieces, then apply the Mod Podge to one small section of the jar at a time with a paintbrush. Stick the tissue paper to the jar—we did two layers to make sure the colors were rich and would create a nice glow once the candles were lit. Once the Mod Podge dries, cut out a tree from the brown cardstock to create a silhouette of the trunk and branches. Add a candle and watch them glow!
Stress ball pumpkins
What you’ll need:
Orange balloons
black Sharpie
Flour (Â could also use sand or cornstarch)
funnel (create a paper cone one if needed)
empty plastic water battle
green pipe cleaners or yarn
This is another easy fall craft project — and fun to play with after you’ve finished. Using the funnel, add one full cup of flour to the plastic water bottle (this is how you will get the flour into the balloon). Once the flour is in the bottle, blow up the balloon and gently place it over the top of the bottle. Turn the bottle over and gently squeeze. This will force the flour into the balloon. Once all the flour is in, carefully let the rest of the air out of the balloon (this can get messy and flour can squirt out, so tread carefully). Tie a knot and decorate with spooky faces. Tie a green pipe cleaner or yarn around the knot to look like vines. You could also use white balloons to make it a ghost or a giant eyeball.
More fall fun:
Make a fall nature collection at the arboretum
