Fall Leaves...Craft Project

For years, I have enjoyed finding new and different crafts to do during the various seasons to teach my little ones about nature.  So, I'm  always on the look out for fun projects.  I came across this fall leaf craft through the Parent Magazine online and thought it was perfect since we like love miracle walks and collecting gifts from the Earth to craft with...

Salt Dough leaf prints...

We started our project by collecting various sizes leaves and making sure they had good ridges on the back.  We noticed there were a lot of variations in the leaves, not only in sizes and colors but in smoothness too.   After warming up from our walk we started in on the dough.

I love Salt Dough 

It's to easy to make and so much fun to use.  I've used it in the past to make ornaments for our Yule Tree.  Here's the recipe we used...

Salt Dough Recipe:

2 cups flour
1/2 cup salt
3/4 - 1 cups water
some additional flour for kneading

Of course you can double the recipe if you want to make more.  We ended up with a wonderful soft dough which we rolled out and started cutting circles.  We used a variety of sizes...since we had different leaf sizes to accommodate.

Once we had the circles cut out, we pressed a leaf into each one

We put parchment paper a flat pan and laid each one down on it, popped them in the oven at 250 and backed them for 2-3 hours.  Pulled them out and let them cool.

Then the real fun began...

Out came Mom's acrylic paints, cos as I was told by my little one "I have the coolest paints ever":) and we started to paint our Autumn colors on our leaves.

Once they were dry we used some watered down brown paint so we could apply a wash over the leaf to make the veins of the leaves pop while still letting the beautiful Autumn colors come through.  We  let it dry a second time and then finished them off with a coat of glossy Mod Podge to seal it.

Walla beautiful Autumn Leaf Prints!

Thanks to "That Artist Women" for her wonderful instructions and inspiration :)