Between leaves, pumpkins, and pine cones, there’s no shortage of art projects featuring autumn motifs, and that’s not even including traditional Halloween and Thanksgiving imagery! When rounding up our favorite fall craft ideas for kids, we looked for seasonal artwork that could be finished in one sitting. After all, children don’t typically have the time nor the attention span to sit through a long, complicated craft — and let’s be honest, neither do most parents!
Who says fall crafts have to be shades of orange, red, yellow and brown? Blogger, Meri Cherry, punched up the color palette with these glittered fall leaf garlands, made with tissue paper and paint in bold hues. The freeform style of this project lets little hands help, while bigger kids and grown-ups can put on the finishing touches.
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Perfect for older kiddos with scissor skills, this beautiful scalloped paper pumpkin from blogger Sarah Hearts looks much more complicated than it is. Take a real or faux pumpkin and cut out tissue paper circles of varying colors and adhere with double-sided tape, working your way from bottom to top.
(Photo Source: Sarah Hearts)
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Encourage children of all ages to use their imagination and look for animal shapes in fall foliage. Press the leaves in a book to flatten, then provide black and white markers and watch a menagerie of creatures come to life! Little sewers can also experiment with embroidering on fresh leaves.
(Photo: Handmade Charlotte)
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It’s time to think out-of-the-box — or rather, out-of-the-bottle — with sand art. While beautiful when layered in jars, colored craft sand adds playful texture when applied to canvases using Mod Podge®. If free-hand drawing isn’t your specialty, these fall nature stencils nearly guarantee a seasonal masterpiece.
(Photo Source: Oriental Trading)
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Needles aren’t necessary for this kid-friendly sewing project. Masking tape and a hole punch are the key to achieving this mixed-media craft, featuring brightly colored neon yarn and thick, waxy leaves. Display the finished results in a bowl, scatter them across a mantle, or string them to even more yarn for a fall-inspired garland.
(Source: Pink Stripey Socks)
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Wrapped with colorful yarn, small sticks form a texture-rich mobile in this fall craft project that doubles as an engineering activity for kids. Connect the twirling twigs with string or twine, ending with a small rock or pine cone as a weight to balance the mobile when it hangs.
(Source: Babble Dabble Do)
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Looking for a fall art project that can improve your child’s fine motor skills? Stringing orange pony beads on chenille stems is a fun way for kids to work on their hand-eye coordination while creating festive pumpkins perfect for Halloween decor.
(Source: Glue Sticks & Gumdrops)
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Perfect for young kids, this no-knit yarn craft might be the easiest art project on the list. Glue guns aren’t even necessary! Simply wrap autumn-hued yarn around big, symmetrical pine cones for modern-rustic accents that will lend cozy texture and pops of color to any room in the house.
(Photo Source: A Pretty Fix)
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Tissue paper squares glow like stained glass when attached to clear contact paper and hung in a sunlit window. Orange and green squares are perfect for pumpkins, or mix and match colors to create autumnal shapes like leaves, corn, and more.
(Photo Source: Oriental Trading)
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The brown paper bag, a kitchen staple in every household with school-age kids, stars as a tree trunk in this 3-dimensional work of art. Red, orange, and yellow tissue paper, scrunched into balls and adhered to construction paper with glue, form the autumn leaves of this 3-D tree.
(Photo Source: She Knows)
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If you know how to decoupage, you’ll enjoy making these Mason jar candle holders with your kids. Don’t bother collecting leaves in the backyard; faux fall leaves work even better than real ones because the Mod Podge® soaks through the fabric. Add a finishing touch with raffia or satin ribbon bow.
(Photo Source: Spark & Chemistry)
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Hand-drawn embellishments on real or faux leaves add eye-catching detail to this easy fall-themed garland, perfect for parties or everyday decoration. Attach both the leaves and decorative washi tape flags to string using tiny dots of adhesive from a hot glue gun.
(Photo Source: Delineate Your Dwelling)
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Print, cut with scissors, and set out these coloring book-style postcards at your Thanksgiving table for a meaningful pre-dinner activity. Kids can use colored pencils and adults can dabble with watercolor paints to fill in the border of blank leaves while having conversations about gratitude.
(Photo Source: Alice and Lois)
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‘Tis the season for gratitude, and, in the weeks leading up to Thanksgiving, this crafty banner will remind you and your kids to be extra thankful. Popsicle sticks glued together atop cardboard create small-scale wooden pallets that can lettered with stencils and then colored with a gold paint marker.
(Photo Source: Pars Caeli)
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If you end up with more pumpkin seeds than you could possibly ever eat, dye them by placing them in baggies with a few squirts of liquid watercolors, seal, shake, then spread onto a tray or plate to dry. Then, provide children with paper, markers and glue, and give them free reign to create whatever inspires them --like this tree, for example.
(Photo Source: Fun-A-Day)
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This fall craft for kids is part art project, part nature walk. Encourage children to go outside and find materials for their wind chimes such as sticks, pine cones and rocks. Then, provide standard craft items like beads, twine, and a hot glue gun and glue. Offer paint and brushes for children to add color to their rocks, then assemble. Older kids may be able to complete this on their own, while younger kiddos will need help.
(Photo Source: The Benson Street)
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All you need for this gorgeous project is a basic salt dough recipe, artificial leaves (real ones don’t leave as good of an imprint), acrylic paint, ModPodge(r) and anything round to use as a cutter. Simply make the dough, cut out rounds, press the leaves into the dough then remove, bake and paint.
(Photo Source: That Artist Woman)
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Perfect for older kids, this owl craft helps them hone scissor skills while sneaking in a few extra pieces of candy. You’ll need brown, yellow, orange, white and green paper; candy corn (14 pieces to be exact -- but you’ll probably want more ;-)); scissors; glue and a black marker. Follow the example on Crafty Morning to cut out your owl pieces, then glue them together and finally glue on the candy corn.
(Photo Source: Crafty Morning)
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Add unexpected color and interest to your fall doorstep using melted crayons! Grab a white pumpkin (or a set of faux pumpkins for year-after-year use) and a box of crayons. Let children pick and unpeel their favorite colors, then glue them to the pumpkin. Place the pumpkin on top of newspaper or an old sheet, plug in your blowdryer, and watch those crayons melt!
(Photo Source: Mom Spark)
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Let little ones in on the fall craft fun with this toddler-perfect wreath activity. Simply provide them with a cut-out paper plate covered in glue, and invite them to add their favorite fall craft items such as artificial leaves, mini pumpkins, acorns, colored tissue paper, pom-poms, ribbon, sequins, buttons and more.
(Photo Source: Toddler Approved)
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Painted acorns are an easy fall children’s craft that adds an unexpected pop of color to your fall hurricanes and jars. Beth from Home Stories A to Z gathered acorns (which you can send your kiddos outside to do ;-)) and baked them on a tray in the oven at 170 degrees for just under two hours to make sure they were sterile and dry. Then, she simply used a brush and her stash of acrylic paints to cover them. Provide a wide range of colors and let children create their own unique combinations.
(Photo Source: Home Stories A to Z)
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This simple DIY by Haeley from Design Improvised comes together using only orange yarn, green chenille stems, twine and scissors. Get step-by-step instructions including how to wrap, where to cut and how to hang.
(Photo Source: Design Improvised)
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Give an old cardboard box new life with this kids fall craft! Draw leaves on a piece of paper and tape the paper to the bottom of the box. Add a few dabs of paint to the box, then drop in several marbles and let kids roll and shake them around until the paint covers the leaves. Once dried, cut out the leaves and hang. If you’d like to turn it into two activities, add labels for kids to write what they are thankful for.
(Photo: The Moffatt Girls)
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