Fall Crafts: Leaves and Indian Corn

Every year Cherise faithfully brought cards for the children to pass out to the residents at Woodhaven for our redemption of Halloween. I felt bad, that my children always robbed hers of some of their creations, so when Liam asked if we would make something for the "old people at Woodhaven" this year, I was all ears.

The leaves I found in the clearance craft area of Target. They were dual purpose... work on fine motor development with the lacing up part, and the finished ornaments were something special to hand out! Having the boys sit still was an extra bonus!! :)

The corn, I had randomly found a while back here. Theirs was much cuter and textured, by painting the bubble wrap and using raffia as the husk portion. But I didn't have enough mini bubble wrap, nor did I have raffia (at least in an easily accessible location). And it looked like that way could be a bit messier. But I loved the corn kernel idea. So this is what I came up with...

 I took the bubble wrap I had saved (thank you, Amazon!), some acrylic fall paint colors (I added blue and yellow later), a paper towel tube (cut in half) and yellow cardstock. I cut my bubble wrap to fit the tubes, and taped it on (tape at the beginning, and the end, should work- at the end, tape on the sides, so it doesn't have a flat spot on your corn). I left space on the end for him to hold. I probably could have left more. It makes it easy/less messy to hold if the bubble wrap is double layered up.

 Then let your child go to town on it... :)
By the way, it looks best if they try not to slide the tube as they are rolling (the part on the right of the picture was slid, but then he got the hang of it). If you are extra anal, you may want to roll the excess paint off first, just as if you were painting a wall.

 Layer up the colors and have fun!

 Added a bit of blue on the end, and had him just "dot" that on.

 On some of the pages, he layered up so much red and orange, he wanted to go back over it a bit with yellow.

 Once it dries, cut corn shapes out of the cardstock. (I had lightly traced them on earlier on a couple pages, but you don't have too. I was able to make 4 Indian corn for each page).

Then, since I didn't have raffia, I took a plain paper bag, and had Liam cut it into strips (I told him it was part of his homeschooling-- scissor skills!). We crinkled it up, and then you put 3-4 strips/ear of corn.

 Tada!

 We wrote little messages on the back and Liam thoroughly enjoyed passing them out the next day!