Our Best Autumn Craft Ideas

These are some of our favourite autumn art and craft ideas for toddlers and older children that you can try at home. Autumn is one of my favourite times of the year. The colour change of the leaves is spectacular and a great talking point with children. This colour change and the love of collecting autumn leaves has inspired these autumn craft activities. There are so many great autumn craft ideas out there but these were all so easy to setup and great fun for our toddlers and older children.

Crayon and Watercolor Autumn Leaves

So for this all you need is some white paper, crayons and some water colour paints. Water colours are great for younger children to experiment with. Draw an outline of the leaves on the paper with the crayons. Then your children can get to work with the water colour paints. My two have really taken to painting with watercolor paints and it makes such a lovely change to the poster paints we often use. M was so careful when painting and this was a great activity for their motor skills, without them realising it. M also really focused on colour mixing. My 2 year old was also very keen to get colour mixing but she wanted to mix on the actual paint. She enjoyed it nonetheless and was very proud of her finished creation. They both enjoyed this autumn craft idea so much that they wanted more paper to create another autumnal painting each.

Tissue Paper Autumn Leaves Suncatcher

I would normally use sticky backed plastic for this autumn craft idea but I have been conscious of moving away from unnecessary plastic waste so thought I would try using glue and baking paper to create the same effect. For this activity you will need PVA glue, baking paper and coloured tissue paper ripped into small pieces. I drew a rough outline of a leaf onto the baking paper but then cut a large circle around it. This was as I knew that there gluing would not be that accurate and so would stop too much glue going onto the surface underneath. I also put a sheet of newspaper down to protect the surface underneath from overzealous toddlers with glue! I actively encouraged my two to go a bit crazy with the glue. They covered the entire surface with glue to start off with before sticking the tissue paper on. Once the tissue paper covered the leaf we put another layer of glue on top. This makes the surface nice, flat and shiny and helps the sunlight shine through. Although this was slightly messy it was a successful autumn craft idea. The only downside for my two was having to wait for the glue to dry! Once the glue was dry I cut out the actual outline of the leaf.

Fingerprinting Autumn Painting

This is another very easy to set up autumn craft idea. All that you need is a simple tree outline. I printed mine from an image I found online. But you could very easily just draw your own with a black or brown pen. The only other thing you need is fingerprint ink stamp pads. These ones are great as they are non toxic and washable too. I only put out the autumn colours I wanted them to use. Otherwise I can almost guarantee we would have ended up with rainbow trees. It is then ready for little fingers to get painting. F was far more interested in putting her finger prints around the bottom of the tree but as there are often more leaves on the ground than on the tree in autumn at times this was pretty accurate really! M started off wanting to create patterns with her finger prints and was being very orderly about the whole thing. But then when she saw F and me randomly and frantically dipping our fingers then printing them at speed she followed suit. I had prepared a damp old towel for them to wipe their fingers on so the colours weren’t mixed. However, my 2 year old was reluctant to clean her fingers in between. Luckily this doesn’t effect these finger paints much and they soon return to their original colour. These autumn crafts look great and looking forward to putting them up in their art work frames.

Apple Printing

We have had a huge harvest of cooking apples this year and unfortunately there are only so many crumbles and cakes we can eat! We have printed using potatoes and it worked really well so I thought apples would be worth a try.

I first painted on a tree with bare branches onto a huge piece of white card. I use card for this type of activity because my 2 year old is a generous painter and it stops the paint ripping the paper. I put autumnal paint colours into old takeaway containers with half an apple in each. I modelled and explained that we were going to use the apples to create the leaves falling off the trees and away we went. This autumn craft idea was wonderful for my 2 year old to create a visually effective piece but also enabled us to talk about the colours of the leaves, where we were stamping our apples and beginning to explore purposeful colour mixing. Lovely autumn craft idea for my 2 year old.

Autumn Leaf Wreath

This is an easy autumn craft idea for kids that makes use of all those colourful leaves that your children have been collecting at home. Mine always find another “perfect one” that we just have to keep. All that you need for this activity is a paper plate, PVA glue and those autumn leaves. Cut the inner circle out from the paper plate and it is ready, Mine really enjoyed pasting the glue on. M was far more picky about which leaf would go where and she took convincing that it would look nice to layer the leaves. F on the other hand was quite happy to attempt to stick whole handfuls down at once. Either way it kept them both busy!

Autumn Leaf Dye Painting

This is a simple autumn craft idea for toddlers and older children that you can easily try at home. It is, however slightly messy! To set this up cut leaf shapes out of kitchen roll paper. They do not have to be perfect! Then prepare some food colouring. If you are using liquid food colouring you can just pour it straight into a small egg cup. They really don’t need much at all; less than egg cup full should be enough. I used this food colouring which I have had ever since my eldest’s first birthday cake, With this type of food colouring you need mix it some with water. You need to make the water look like quite dark with the colour so that the colour comes out when they use it. I then covered the table with newspaper in preparation for our autumn craft activity. This is definitely necessary! Even if you don’t mind your table being covered in food colouring, the newspaper help soaks up any excess food colouring and prevents it running off onto the floor. I gave my two these easy to use pipettes, which are great for fine motor skills and can be cleaned easily to be used again. I couldn’t track all my pipettes down so also used old medicine syringes.

My two absolutely loved this autumn craft activity, especially my 2 year old. I was pleased that I had cut out plenty of leaf shapes as they kept on wanting to do more! I was so impressed that F who is not yet two could use the pipettes, They were a hit and we will have to use them again for some water play soon.

Hope you enjoy these autumn crafts ideas with your kids. If you have any other autumn craft ideas that you have enjoyed with your toddlers and older children, please do share. We are always on the look out for new great ideas!