What can we make from leaves?

First ideas and inspiration for autumn crafts

The colorful leaves in autumn you can not only enjoy them outdoors, but also bring them home. After all, autumn leaves can be used to create great decorations for your home.

With a little skill, the right materials and a large dose of good cheer, you can let your creativity run free when Crafting with children run free. Whether a stylish autumn wreath for the front door, a funny hedgehog made of leaves or more ideas for gluing, cutting, printing or painting – the possibilities for crafting with autumn leaves and showcasing them are varied.

On this page you'll find the best DIY instructions to recreate, so you can start crafting with your little crafters right away. The best part: In the shared crafting sessions you not only spend valuable family time and strengthen family bonds, but your kids also create real works of art with their little hands. This not only boosts the self-confidence of the little artists, but also helps to improve promoting fine motor skills.

Tips for collecting and drying autumn leaves

If you want to use your next walk in the woods to collect leaves for crafting, you should keep a few things in mind so that the natural materials last until craft time. It's best to bring a small box to safely carry the leaves or other materials home.

Once at home, pat the leaves dry with kitchen paper or briefly place them on the radiator. Because only if you store the crafting material dry and safely will it not spoil. Small storage boxes are particularly suitable for this, which you can fill as you like with oak, beech, maple leaves or other natural materials such as twigs, chestnuts, acorns or pine cones.

How to dry leaves using a book and make them long-lasting is shown further down in the corresponding craft instruction.

Materials you'll need for crafting with leaves

You probably already have most of the materials for crafting with leaves at home, so you can put the first decoration ideas into practice right away. If not, you'll find the right craft materials at HABA. What are you waiting for? Grab your craft scissors, glue and colorful leaves and let the autumn crafting fun begin.

Natural materials:

• Leaves in various shapes and colors

• Acorns and acorn caps (optional)

• Cones (optional)

• Chestnuts with shells (optional)

• Grasses & moss (optional)

• Branches & twigs (optional)

• dried flowers or tree fruits (optional)

Craft materials:

• plain paper

• cardboard, card stock

• colored construction paper

• transparent paper

• felt

• craft glue, white glue or paste

• hot glue gun

• acrylic & watercolors

• brushes

• craft scissors

• finger paints

• paint smocks & aprons

• newspaper or craft mat

• pens & paints

• needle & thread

• shape punch

• bead maker

• storage boxes

• googly eyes

Simple ideas and craft instructions:

How to create great leaf artworks

Are you missing specific craft ideas for great autumn decorations made of leaves? HABA has collected the best instructions for crafting with autumn leaves for you.

Our instructions are suitable for children of all ages – with a little help from you parents, even toddlers crafting can already let their creativity run free.

Painting and decorating colorful autumn leaves

Materials needed:

• various autumn leaves

• acrylic, finger or watercolor paints

• brushes

• felt-tip pens

• newspaper or a workspace cover for crafting

• colored construction paper (optional)

Instructions:

1. For this craft idea you need various autumn leaves. Collect leaves in all sizes, colors and shapes.

2. To protect the table from paint splashes, lay out newspaper or a mat before you start crafting.

3. Now you can experiment with colors. You decide whether to paint your leaves with watercolors, felt-tip pens, acrylics or finger paints – the main thing is that everything shines later in autumnal colors.

4. Let your leaf artworks dry well. It's best to place them together with the crafting mat on the windowsill.

5. You can then use the finished decorated leaves for a variety of craft ideas, such as decorating greeting cards made of construction paper or cheerful autumn pictures. Alternatively, you can also make a colorful autumn tree from them by drawing it on paper and gluing the leaves on.

Creating leaf animals

Materials needed:

• colorful autumn leaves

• construction paper in your favorite colors

• glue

• felt-tip pens, watercolors or colored pencils

• scissors

• googly eyes (optional)

Instructions:

1. Lay out your collected autumn leaves – the more leaves you have to choose from, the more colorful and creative your leaf animals will be.

2. Now think about which animal you want to make. If it should be a wild lion, download the craft template. Cut it out and paint the lion's face as you like.

3. If you prefer to make a different animal, draw the face or the entire animal body on construction paper and cut out the outlines. Now you can also decorate the little animal colorfully.

4. For the lion, glue the leaves around the face – it will have a wild mane. For another animal, the leaves can form the shaggy fur, scruffy ears or small wings. Then let the glue dry well.

5. Give your leaf animal even more character with googly eyes, which you simply attach with a drop of glue. And your artwork made from colorful leaves is complete!

Leaf stamping

Materials needed:

• various leaves

• white paper

• acrylic or watercolors

• brushes

• newspaper or craft mat

Instructions:

1. First, lay a crafting mat or newspaper on the table to protect it.

2. Choose the most beautiful leaves from your collection and apply the acrylic or watercolor paint with a brush.

3. Press the paint from the still-wet leaf onto the white paper and smooth it out well with your hands until a complete print forms. Remove the autumn leaf and continue with the other leaves. To get the best results, let your artwork dry a bit between prints so nothing smears.

4. If you are satisfied with your autumn stamp picture, it's best to let the whole thing dry completely on the windowsill.

Punching leaves for beautiful lanterns

Materials needed:

• colorful autumn leaves

• shape punch

• craft glue or hot glue

• mason jar

Instructions:

1. Place the leaves you want to use for your lantern on the table in front of you.

2. Use a shape punch to carefully punch out the motifs in the autumn leaves. It's best if parents help their children a little with this crafting step.

3. Now glue your punched leaves all around the mason jar. The cut-out motifs will later let the light shine through beautifully.

4. Now all that's missing is a tealight or an electric candle to place in the jar, and your homemade lantern is ready.

Pressing and drying leaves

Materials needed:

• various leaves

• a thick, heavy book (e.g., an encyclopedia)

• newspaper or kitchen paper

Instructions:

1. If you want to enjoy the colorful autumn leaves for a long time, press and dry them using a book. Conserved this way, the leaves keep their color and don't curl.

2. Choose the most beautiful leaves you want to dry. Make sure to select leaves that are not diseased or damaged.

3. Place some newspaper or kitchen paper in the middle of the encyclopedia (or another heavy book) and position your leaves centrally between the pages. It's important that they do not overlap. The paper or kitchen paper absorbs the moisture so the leaves dry even faster.

4. Close the book and put a heavy object like a crate of water or similar on top to apply more weight to your leaves.

5. After about two weeks your autumn leaves are dry. Now you can either glue them into an album or use them for further craft ideas.

Creating garlands & mobiles

Required materials:

• Sachenmacher First Threading Felt Garland Squirrel Craft Kit

• scissors

• bead maker for decorating (optional)

• chestnuts, acorns or other natural materials (optional)

• chestnut drill (optional)

Instructions:

1. Unpack the craft kit and lay the felt sheets on the table. Choose the most beautiful motifs with which you want to make your mobile or garland.

2. With the bead makers you can decorate the felt pendants as you like. Let everything dry well.

3. Once everything is dry, use the needle to thread the squirrels, leaves, chestnuts, berries in any order. If you like, decorate between the felt leaves with chestnuts or acorns. First drill holes in the natural materials with a chestnut drill and then thread the string through them as well.

4. Tie the individual threads well at the end and wrap everything around the branch if you want to make a mobile. Tie a cord at the top for hanging. For a garland you don't need the branch.

5. Done: Now hang up your artwork and enjoy your autumn craft idea.

More autumn crafts with and without natural materials

Hooray, autumn is here! And since autumn is known to be a popular crafting season, HABA gives you further inspirations for crafting with natural materials. Because not only from tree leaves and foliage can you create great artworks – also pine cones, chestnuts or acorns are just waiting out there to be collected and processed by you.

Of course you can even without natural materials create autumn artworks – whether a colorful wreath as a decoration for the table or window decorations and garlands in DIY style – our craft instructions are just waiting to be put into practice by you. Are you ready?

Crafting with Chestnuts

Crafting with chestnuts is a classic for children in autumn. Not only when collecting them will they be thrilled, implementing the various craft ideas is a real highlight for all little crafters. Besides chestnut figures or animal figures you can put many more ideas into practice. Which ones? HABA shows you on the topic page.

Crafting with Pine Cones

Pine cones come in the a wide range of shapes and sizes. As varied as the species, the craft ideas are equally varied. Use the next forest walk, to collect with your children natural materials to collect for crafting.

Do you need ideas or instructions for creative artworks? HABA helps you on the pine cone crafting page.

Crafting with Acorns

Crafting with acorns is a popular autumn activity for children of all ages. With the small, brown tree fruits you can create all kinds of creative artworks and decorations that you can either give away or use to beautify your home. On the appropriate topic page HABA provides creative ideas for crafting with acorns.

Ideas for Autumn Crafts

Besides the many colorful natural materials that gardens, forests and parks provide in autumn, also conventional materials are suitable for crafting artworks. Whether during autumn felt crafting, pricking or the building a glowing lantern for St. Martin – the alternatives without natural materials are numerous. Browse through our ideas and get to work.

Image credits:

Mother and child playing with leaves © Westend61 - stock.adobe.com

4 leaves with a heart punched out of the center © Jenny Sturm - stock.adobe.com

Children glue animal leaf pictures © Tomsickova - stock.adobe.com

Autumn decorations: children paint with watercolors © Animaflora - stock.adobe.com

Girl paints green on a leaf © Inna - stock.adobe.com

Girl crafts with autumn leaves © Robert Kneschke - stock.adobe.com

Glass decorated with leaves © Anna_ok - stock.adobe.com

Boy sitting on a bench with his collected leaves © Maria - stock.adobe.com