When my little guy is painting he loves to mix the colours and see what he can create. So when he asked to do some painting the other day I thought I would come up with a fun colour mixing activity. Looking out the window at all the beautiful golden and burgundy leaves kicked my inspiration in to gear and between us we came up with the little Colour mixing finger-paint tree activity. Its a fun and simple craft for young children and we had loads of messy fun making it!
You will need
Paper Autumn coloured paints (we used; Red, yellow, pink, orange, brown and beige) A pen
To start your tree. Take a light coloured pen (we used yellow to blend with the tree) and draw a large circle to make the head of your tree. Take your Leaf colour paints and make several thick fingerprints within your circle.
This is the fun part! Take your index finger and mix your paints all together, stretching the colour out to the edge of your circle. When you’re happy with your tree, take your pen and draw the trunk of your tree.
As before, use your index finger to dot your darker colours inside your tree trunk.
and smush it all together!
My son then added some red spots to his tree. He couldn’t decided whether they were apples or blossom but either way I think its looks fab and really finishes off his picture!
Did you enjoy this Colour mixing finger-paint tree craft? Why not check out my super cute leafy hedgehog?
My son is always collecting leaves, I’m not quite sure why, its just something he’s always done. Usually we make cute little nature pictures from them but sadly once off the tree, leaves don’t last very long! This time we decided to use our leaves to make a picture we could keep. We’ve made a leafy hedgehog collage a few times and we thought this time why not use wax rubbings of our leaves so that we can keep him and hang him on the wall!
You will need
Leaves background paper white paper Wax crayons Brown paper Black marker Googly eye or marker scissors & glue
Its best to start your hedgehog by making his face, this gives the glue time to dry before you add your leaves. To make the face all you need to do is cut out a brown triangle and stick it down on one side of your paper. Then, give your hedgehog an eye and a nose! (you could always cut out a fancier shaped head – Triangles are just easy for my little guy to cut out!)
Now to make your wax rubbings! To do so, simply place your leaf face up under your piece of white paper. Lay your wax crayon on its side and rub it over your paper where your leaf is. Depending on how hard your crayon is you may need to add a little pressure. We used around 12 leaf rubbings per hedgehog but it will depend on the size of your leaves!
Now you need to cut out your lead rubbings! Young children may find it easier if you draw them a guide line to follow around each leaf.
Finally, glue your leaf rubbings down to create your hedgehogs spiky body. How Cute does he look!?
