Nature Crafts: The Autumn Leaf King

On Wednesday, we walked back from school, across the heath and discovered fungi, flowers, leaves of various shades, feathers, acorns and plenty of mud! You can follow our nature adventures on Instagram.

We collected many Autumnal Treasures…

Lily decided she wanted to make some acorn people, by drawing on the acorns she collected, with a marker pen.

We placed the leaves and flowers that we had collected between some heavy paper, sandwiched between thick book board. As the flower press, was not only broken, but too small for the leaves, I improvised by placing the enclosed leaves underneath a bookcase!!! After only 4 days the leaves and flowers were suitably pressed and I decided to make this quick nature craft!

Materials

• Pressed leaves and flowers
• Long matchstick or wooden skewer
• Seed/Acorn/Small Pine cone/flower
• Large Wooden Doll Body
• Glue!

Take your doll body and choose a suitable leaf for the cloak. If you still have a stem on your leaf, like we did… wrap the stem around the neck. Lift the leaf, place a small amount of glue under the leaf to place the end of the stem in. Press the leaf down on top. Take the two sides of the leaf and glue to the sides of the doll body.

Choose smaller leaves/seeds/petals/flowers to create a crown. Fix in place with glue.

To make a staff/sceptre… Cut a large matchstick or wooden skewer to length. Put a small amount of glue on top and affix your seed/acorn/small pine cone/dried flower.

Although, it does take a few days to press the leaves and flowers, once you have these ready, it takes only a few minutes to create your Autumn Leaf King or Queen. You could make a set for every season, using different gathered natural materials found locally.

My daughter was really smitten with the Autumnal Royal Visitor, I think she would rather like to make a queen next too!

How do the seasons influence/inspire your crafting?