Autumn Leaves - Handprints

I LOVE Autumn!  There is a definite lack of the typical signs of fall in Vegas.  We happily drive to Mt. Charleston to see the leaves change color but I wanted to do as many crafts at home to help the kids realize the season actually did change.  As of yesterday it actually began to feel like fall, the Vegas skies weren't the usual gorgeous blue and I didn't constantly check the doors to make sure we weren't wasting our a/c.

I had my 18 month old do this handprint, it took a couple tries but she finally lost interest in squishing her fingers on the tiles slick surface.  Thankfully I have a box of baby wipes next to me to quickly wipe off the "mistakes" and re-apply the paint to her hands.  Yes, we did take a shower afterwards since she puts her hands in her hair immediately.

We used the washable Crayola tempura paint; Green, Yellow, Orange, and Red.  I painted her hand with the lighter colors first then dabbed on the darker colors.  I wanted the leaf to look as if it was laying down or falling so I had the tile diagonal when I placed her hand down.  As usual I painted my fingers a bit so when I took her hand I didn't take any of her paint off - oddly enough, if my hand isn't painted a little as well I seem to be concerned with getting some on me.  This is weird since I'm covered in paint or glue most of my day anyway but if you ever find yourself hesitating due to not wanting to get paint on yourself - PUT it on yourself and you'll be able to grasp your child's hand and move her fingers however you wish!

After her handprint dried I used the back end of the paint brush to paint on some leave veins.  I let that dry then outlined the hand print in a leaf shape with gold glitter glue.  This is at our Dollar Store almost year round so I use it often!

After its all finished I sprayed it with an enamel to seal it.

Another Fall handprint craft...

I know I've said it already, but I LOVE Autumn!!!  I had all the kids contribute to this one.  We were up in UT visiting family when the kids actually got to see some leaves turning.  The girls were excited to gather leaves...I carefully inspected them for bugs yet still managed to take some home.  We did leaf rubbings as well, I forgot to take picts of those.  We'll go hiking soon again so we'll be doing that one again for sure!

Hand Print Tree:

Handprint Tree for Fall

Another Super Easy handprint craft.  I painted in the trunk of the tree the gave each kiddo one color to paint their hands.  Oddly my 18month old knows exactly what to do, she's been doing hand prints since she was 10 weeks old!  I let them go for it and they had a blast. 

Autumn is HERE!

Hand Print Tree for Autumn

It's time to do a handprint craft!  My kids love to get the squishy paints between their fingers and what better way to celebrate the new season?  Vegas doesn't have too many signs of seasons so we do our best to bring them in home.  We started with this craft then took a walk in our green belt.  No surprise that we didn't find a single sign of Autumn as we walk along in our tank tops and flip flops wondering when the temp will go below 105 degrees.

We bought some glitter paper at the Dollar Store that I've been saving for holidays.  Since Autumn is my favorite season we broke out the glitter paper!  This one is super easy.  Paint your little ones hand and some of the forearm brown.  Then the fun part, let your kiddo dip their fingers into one color at a time to decorate the tree!  We made 3 of them...this is the only one that doesn't have fall leaves all over the page.  They had so much fun doing it I just couldn't break in.  Besides, Autumn leaves fall....they were just thinking ahead of the lesson!