Fall Crafts for Kids!!!

I LOVE fall. It is my absolute favorite season, especially since moving to NC. The leaves turn beautiful colors, the weather is wonderful, and there are lots of opportunities to do fun activities. In fact,  I have chosen a lot of "fall" colors for the decor in my house. With that in mind, I decided that I would like to have the kids make some artwork that could be displayed on my walls. I had thought about doing this often, but didn't know exactly what I wanted to do and wanted to make sure that they looked nice. I didn't just want random finger paintings or scribbles up everywhere, and all three of my kids are not at a point artistically where their artwork looks like more than that without specific instruction. My boys are also at an age where they now realize that not every scribble is beautiful artwork and they get frustrated by their fine motor limitations. They don't usually feel successful at art. So, I came up with an easy art project for them to do that not only teaches them about color mixing and painting with acrylics on canvases, but creates a piece of artwork that can be displayed in my home.

Supplies:

• One canvas per child. 
• I purchased these at Michaels with a 40% off coupon. Tip: it is actually a much better deal to purchase a package of 7 with a coupon than to purchase 6 of them in 2 packs. If you are planning on doing more than one project with canvases, the multi pack is the way to go. I think I paid a total of $12 for 7 canvases. I know we will be doing a Christmas painting using canvases, so that worked out great for me!
• Fall colored acrylic paint.
• We used green, orange, red, sparkle gold, and sparkle green. My kids especially like the sparkle paint.
• Sponge paint brushes. 
• Super duper cheap at home depot and my kids prefer to paint with them over regular paint brushes. They are a little smoother and more forgiving.
• Sponge cutouts of leaves.
• I took regular kitchen sponges (the cheap ones) and traced leaf patterns. I then cut them out with heavy duty scissors to create leaf stamps.
• Paper plates to use as a palette.
• Clear spray sealer.

Directions:

• Teach the kids about mixing paint while you mix red and green together to create the ideal brown color for the trunk. Depending on the age of your child will depend on how much they can help with this. Since I was making a lot of brown, I decided to keep it controlled and do the work by myself. However, even my 4 year old mixes colors together on a smaller scale.
• Using sponge paintbrushes, have the child paint their tree trunk.

• Put the non-sparkly fall colored paint on their paper plate palette and have them stamp using the leaf cutouts. It works better if the sponges aren't completely saturated with paint, leaving some of the white canvas to peak through. It's ok if the leaves are on top of each other and if the colors mix together. It helps to add to the tree look.

• Use the sparkle paint last and repeat the previous step to create a layered look. If you do the sparkle paint first, it will not be noticeable under the other paint colors.
• When dry, spray with sealer.