Leaf Pressing

 Fall leaf pressing

This is easy and fun. Here's the How to-
Step 1-Gather your materials:
*Leaves (Any shape or color. Make sure they are flat and use ones that aren't too dry and crunchy or they will crumble.)
*Wax Paper
*Old broken crayons (optional)
*Hot, dry iron
*ironing board with towel on it to protect it from getting covered in crayon. Might be smart to put a hand towel on top your project as well to protect your iron but if you're careful you'll prob be fine.

Step 2--Arrange leaves on desired piece of wax paper. Make sure there's either enough room to fold it in half or have a identical piece ready for the top. You can cute the waxpaper into a shape previous to arranging leaves or arrange the leaves into a shape then cut after ironing. You can also plug in your iron and make sure its NOT set on steam (it needs to be dry) at this point.

Step 3--Optional--Use a butter knife or scissors to carefully shave pieces of crayon on top or below the leaves making sure the shavings are at least 1/2-1 inch away from the edge so when melted they don't ooz out the sides. This adds a little more color and seems to make things stick together a little better.

Step 4--Fold the wax paper (or place 2nd piece on top) and iron until everything is melted and sticking together.

That easy! Cut into any shape you want. Bookmarks, hearts, whatever!

May I also add that you can do this project with just the crayon shavings too!

Education add in:
Add a little education by teaching them which leaves come from which trees and asking them which is their favorite and why. Check out a few books from the library about leaves, trees, and fall.

Coffee Filter Flowers

We had a huge package of coffee filters for some reason? We don't even drink coffee so it must have been for some craft or something. Anyway, my daughters love to play with them for some reason so I thought we could actually make something with them instead of just having them making a mess all over the house. 

Alli actually first said,"Look mom i made a flower." And sure enough she had! That's what made me think of the old craft of making coffee filter flowers! I looked up on Pinterest how to dye them but I had already figured it out before I looked so I didn't really use a particular pin/post. 

It's very simple:

What you'll need-

•Large coffee filters

•Food coloring

•Water

•Cookie Sheet to let flowers dry on

You can also choose to use floral tape and stems to make them look real but we didn't. 

Instructions:

Fill a bowl about half way full (or less it doesn't take much)

Drop in food coloring according to the egg dying instructions. Or just eyeball it! Get out cookie sheet and set everything aside. You can do this after making the flowers too makes no difference. :)

To make the flowers you just:

1. Fold filter in half

2. Roll filter loosely until it forms a flower

3. Twist the end (towards the flap/opening to make them fuller)

Then to dye them just dip the very tips of the flowers in the dye/water solution and tip up to allow dye to seep down to stem and on "peddles". You can also use a spoon and drip it on the flowers. If your child dips the whole thing don't worry it will just take longer to dry. You can squeeze some of the excess out to help as well. Then just set them on the tray, foil, plate or whatever you're using for them to dry on. Metal is best so it doesn't stain though. 

Anyway, just dip and let dry. If you can, put them on the tray upside down so the dye drips to the tips of the peddles. It took all night for ours to dry but my daughter soaked hers. Once they dry you can add stems or do whatever you want!

We had a green bowl, a red bowl& a purple bowl. The purple had alot of blue so it made a cool tie dye affect. The red makes a pink flower unless u have a LOT of red food coloring! And we dipped some in both purple& green mixtures to add even more color. I think they turned out GREAT!

HAVE FUN!!