Tuesday, December 1, 2009

Fall Leaves

Well its that time a year when you are looking for cute inexpensive decorations for the holidays, I ran across a simple design that you can do with your kids or having a relaxing craft moment alone. My design is even more simple than the one I found, they used brown yarn and glue to make the tree, but I chose to make it simple and paint the design.
Fall leaf placemat for your holiday decor- you also could do a Christmas tree shape and do different color dots for Christmas bulbs. Here are the easy step by step directions!
Cut with pinking sheers a light weight tan fabric the size of a standard placemat, I just laid my over the top and cut the shape out. I also did a double layer and did a simple stitch around the edge, but you can skip this step if you are using a heavier fabric. (I wanted cheap so I used what I had around the house)
I used a basic black acrylic paint to paint the shape of my tree. The paint is thick so you only need to do one coat!
Paint the trunk first the length on the placemat.
Add branches to your tree.
Here's what it looks like on the placemat! (if you wanted to do a Christmas tree, I would use green paint for the tree, and make a center line for the trunk and do three horizontal lines across the tree making a triangle shape in the process.)
Now let all the trees dry completely before starting the next step. I waited about three hours, did some dishes, made some cookies J/K but be sure to wait!
Next, I used some great fall colors for leaves!
The next part is the fun part you can have your kids help you with, my son who is four helped me with about 3 of them and then he was done, so I was left with 9 of them to complete! Place all the colors of paint onto a plate and start using your fingers to make thumbprint leaves! Kids love to get their hands messy, so let them have fun! On this mat my son did all the green leaves first!
Now you are all done and now its time to set up for dinner! (Be sure to let them dry over night to make sure all the paint is dry before using them at your next family gathering!)
thanks, enjoy crafting simple...
Beckymae