We were so smitten with our Valentine's Day Suncatchers, we just HAD to make Fall Leaves. We used the technique we discovered when we made our Super Vibrant Coffee Filter Flowers and it worked perfectly! The leaves are so vibrant.
And when the light catches them just right they seriously just g-l-o-w. It's gorgeous!
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Making them is nice and easy. Grab some white round coffee filters like these and download and print our Fall Leaf Template. Use the paper leaf as a guide to cut out coffee filter leaves. You can cut through 3-5 coffee filters at once, even if you're using kid scissors because you can't find your grown-up scissors. :)
Have your child use an eyedropper or paintbrush to apply liquid watercolors. If you don't have liquid watercolors, you can use food coloring that's slightly diluted with water (just a few drops of water to dilute).
We used red, tangerine, orange, and yellow liquid watercolors for our leaves. It was so fun to watch the colors mix and swirl.
I moved the finished leaves (they can be a little delicate, so this part is probably best for an adult) onto a sheet of plastic wrap. When we were experimenting while making our coffee filter flowers, we discovered that resting the wet colored filters on something that resisted rather than absorbed the moisture (like a paper towel) resulted in much more vibrant colors. Making a circle of tape with the sticky side out, we taped the leaves on the backside to the window.
And now our windows are ready for fall!
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All activities here are activities I feel are safe for my own children. As your child's parents/guardians, you will need to decide what you feel is safe for your family. I always encourage contacting your child's pediatrician for guidance if you are not sure about the safety/age appropriateness of an activity. All activities on this blog are intended to be performed with adult supervision. Appropriate and reasonable caution should be used when activities call for the use of materials that could potentially be harmful, such as scissors, or items that could present a choking risk (small items), or a drowning risk (water activities), and with introducing a new food/ingredient to a child (allergies). Observe caution and safety at all times. The author and blog disclaim liability for any damage, mishap, or injury that may occur from engaging in any of these activities on this blog.
Hi I wonder, how do you fix so the leaf stay on the windows?
ReplyDeleteWe are an creative parent blog from Norway, we want to make these :)
Oh yes! I forgot that part! We used clear tape on the back to stick them to the window. I'll add it to the post now! :)
DeleteThis might be a silly question, but did you leave the plastic wrap on?
ReplyDeleteNot silly at all - nope, we just used the plastic wrap to cover the table where they dried. The hanging leaf is just colored coffee filter. :)
DeleteLove this idea! Pinning for later... I am not ready for summer to end!
ReplyDeleteHahahaha, fair enough! :)
DeleteSo pretty! Reminds me of where I grew up :)
ReplyDeleteOh fun! We get some fall leaves here, but nothing so dramatic. We took a trip to the East Coast once (before kids) in the fall and it was AAAMMMAAZIIING. :)
DeleteThank you so much! :)
DeleteIf you ever get a chance Asia, visit the Laurentian Mountains north of Montreal in the fall, it's amazing! And off the island of Montreal on the north shore you can pick the best McIntosh apples ever! Nope they don't taste like the ones from the west. :)
DeleteThat sounds sooooo fun!!!
DeleteVery pretty, Asia! I really love this craft!
ReplyDeleteThank you, Melissa!!!! :) I am a huge fan of all of your suncatchers, so I am thrilled you are a fan!
DeleteI love this activity is so nice and I love all your post!!! I am so excited for your book but I have a question. I am spanish so I live in Spain I can buy the book from the spanish amazon page. But in your book you use a lot of products that I can't buy in spain like the elmer glue, the liquid starch... I don't want to buy the book and can't do a lot of activities. I have an other question ( I am always making questions hahaha) has the book got new activities or all are the same than the blog? I would like to see news activities. Right that is all haha. I think I am going to buy the book anyway hahaha. Thank you and sorry for my english haha I am learning ;)
ReplyDeleteHi Laura! Thank you! My answer is this - you might not be able to find ALL the materials, but I am happy to help you find what products I can in Spain. Elmer's glue might be called PVA glue there. It would be whatever kind of liquid glue children use. There should be a ton that just use general food items, so I think you should still be able to find a lot to do (though I've never been to Spain, so I'm not sure what you don't have!). The book is 50% new material, so you should be able to find new things to do. It's also really helpful to have all the old popular recipes together in the book (at least we think so). We prefer to find them in the book rather than searching our website, so that is why I included a lot of the most popular recipes in the book as well. I hope that helps!!! :) :) :)
DeleteThank you it helps me a lot, definitely I am goint to buy the book ;) ;)
DeleteYAYY!!! :) :) :)
DeleteThis is fantastic! Can't wait to show it to my two year old. My eldest asked me for the Edible slime a few weeks ago. We tried it... it was perfect! He is a big fan of your blog now... just 6yrs old, so we can't get him a social account to go liking your page everywhere. ;)
ReplyDeleteLOVE it! Thank you so much for linking thoughtfully and I love that we have a new 6 year old fan!!!! <3 <3 <3
DeleteThese turned out beautiful! We have lots of coffee filters so I'm on it! Pinning too!
ReplyDeleteThank you, Susen! And thank you for pinning! :)
DeleteThese are great, I use coffee filters and water colors to make Jelly Fish during our animals themed month. I am so excited to use them for the fall leaves next month here in VA instead of paper!!
ReplyDeleteLisa
Oh, I bet the jellyfish are adorable!!!!
Deletebeautiful, can't wait to try this!
ReplyDeleteThank you!!! :)
DeleteHI Asia!
ReplyDeleteCan you use really thin paper plates? I am a grade 1 teacher and I have numerous plates!
You could - the effect would be different, but still pretty! Coffee filters are so fibrous that they absorb MUCH better than paper plates (which are usually designed to not get soggy), but the liquid watercolors would still create very bright and vibrant leaves!
DeleteThese look gorgeous and a relatively mess free activity too, I love it!
ReplyDeleteThank you so much, Em!!! :)
DeleteWe did these today, and they are GORGEOUS. Can't wait to get them hung on our glass French doors. Thanks for this idea.
ReplyDeleteOh they are going to look so beautiful!!! Thank you! :)
DeleteLove this! I did it with my daughter (3) recently and it was so fun, we made more to mail to grandparents! Thank you! I had her use one of those cheap plastic paintbrushes that comes with a tray of kid watercolors, so the colors spread slowly and beautifully. I just free-handed the leaves, although I should have used yours because mine look questionable :) Looking forward to trying this as flowers in the spring too!
ReplyDeleteYayyy! They sound awesome - I LOVE that you sent some to the grandparents. What a fantastic idea!!! :)
DeleteHow long does it typically take for these to dry before you can hang them?
ReplyDeleteGreat question...I think probably 3-4 hours? I've never timed it though so I'm not 100% on that estimate. :)
DeleteI LOVE THESE FALL LEAF SUNCATCHERS GOING TO DO NOW
ReplyDeleteDO NYOU HAVE ANY WINTER COFFEE FILTER SUNCATCHERS SNOWMEN ORVSNOWFLAKES OR XMAS TOO MADE WITH COFFEE FILTERS IF YOU DO COULD YOU LET ME KNOW LOVE THESE
Thank you so much! I don't, but you could use the same technique to make some!
Deletehi, how do you prevent the coffee filters from rolling up on the sides like a wet paper? or does this not even happen?
ReplyDeleteWe didn't have that problem! If you do though, you could always flatten them between books once they are dry.
DeleteHi Asia, I just found your website and already, I'm pinning away. My daughter homeschools her kids. (3 & 6) The 3 year old hasn't "started" yet but you can see he's interested and wants to do things his big sister does. When she started this homeschool lifestyle I said I would do what I could on my end because they visit weekly. Your ideas are perfect for the kinds of this we can do together. They recently told me that I need more fall decorations so guess what we're going to do next week? Off to the store I go for liquid paint and eyedroppers (although I like Jessica's idea of dripping paint brushes!) Thanks for the simple fun ideas you put out there for others to enjoy. God bless you & your family.
ReplyDeleteThank you Linda! And what lucky grandkids you have! <3 Hope you all enjoy the activities.
DeleteWe’ve been watching Tinker Bell and the Lost Treasure a lot lately, and I love the scene at the beginning when Iridessa aims the light through the leaves and they shimmer in all their jewel tones. I’ve been looking for a fall suncatcher idea, so I thought I would see if someone had designed something around that scene. I did a Google image search, and your post came up several times and looks just about as close to those leaves as I could find. I’m so excited to do this!
ReplyDelete