Mama Gone Green is a blog dedicated to raising happy children and reducing our impact on the Earth. My name is Taryn and I am the mother of 2 young kids and an environmental studies instructor at a community college in Portland, Oregon. Please join me as I journey through life as a mama, teacher, knitter, photographer, gardener, and environmentalist!

Wednesday, October 6, 2010

Leaf Art!

The lovely autumn days that we have had recently have been an inspiration to do some more leaf art!

Leaf and Flower Print Cards:


To make these printed cards, grab a basket and go nature collecting! We cut and collected flowers and ferns from our own yard and gathered fallen leaves from the neighborhood.  The time of year makes your selection somewhat limited, but calendula worked well, as did ferns. Also, deep, dark red leaves came out amazing.
Once you have collected, head back to make some cards! You'll be using a hammer to press the leaves and flowers to make a print on your paper. There is currently a great tutorial at Rhythm of the Home.

Leaf Rubbings:
We have all done this one as kids, right? Collect some fallen leaves, place under a sheet of paper, and rub with a crayon to see the design of the leaf beneath! It's fun to ask the children to compare and contrast the leaves.


Felt Hand-print Leaves for Our Holiday Tree

This is our holiday "tree", which usually has a theme depending on the season or approaching holiday. Yesterday I was planning on cutting out some felt leaves to adorn the tree for fall, and Finn decided that he wanted to trace his hand onto the felt and use his hands as leaves! Even better! It came out pretty cute, although it is a terribly hard thing to photograph, but it ended up being a great project we could do together. Pin It Now!

3 comments:

  1. Love your branch tree and thanks so much for reminding me of the leaf pounding article. I so want to do that!

    :)Lisa

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  2. fun, we did leaf rubbings at craft time a few weeks ago....the are addictive!

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