We have been having so much fun with this leaf people craft! We’re calling them leaf peepers… So far we’ve made three rounds of them at different times, with different friends.
They are quick, easy for a range of ages (young kids through grown-ups), inexpensive to make, and silly. What’s not to like?
Here’s how we made them…
Leaf Peepers :: A Leaf People Craft for Kids
MATERIALS
Autumn leaves, preferably dried and flattened for a week or two between the pages of a book, although you could try the microwave method if you didn’t have the forethought to press leaves last month
Mat to protect your table from the permanent markers (we used some art mats from Discount School Supply, but also regularly use 99 cent placemats from IKEA)
INSTRUCTIONS
We love to draw on autumn leaves with metallic Sharpies and have posted about it quite a few times in the past and tried white paint pens for the first time this year to great effect. Black Sharpies are our back up for when we don’t have enough metallic ones to go around the table, and they work okay but aren’t quite as cool.
The addition of googly eyes was a bit of a last minute idea, but once we started adding them to the leaves (usually with faces) we were hooked.
Here Daphne is drawing on her leaves and her friend Gigi is beginning to glue googly eyes on hers.
Daphne glued her leaves to paper and was very much into drawing around her leaves as well as on her leaves. In her first trio with googly eyes, she simply added them as decoration.
Did I forget to mention there was glitter involved?
In her second round, she turned each of her leaves into people, with arms, legs, eyes, eyelashes, noses, and mouths.
Gigi took home the prize for adding the most eyes to a leaf, though!
I made a few myself, with a mix of googly eyes and metallic sharpies.
And Maia made a grandma and grandpa leaf peeper couple.
I think everyone in our family would recommend you give this leaf people craft a try!