How to make a fall leaf wreath art project

The first time we made a fall leaf wreath craft project was a few years ago when Little Sister was three years old. We had collected beautiful Autumn leaves to create a lovely fall decoration with the colorful leaves. We decided to make more fall leaf wreaths this week to decorate our house and bring the colorful Autumn beauty of nature into our home.

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The first time we made a fall leaf wreath a few years ago, we used fresh leaves. While this looked lovely for a few days, as the leaves dried they curled up and it wasn’t quite as lovely as it originally was. This time around we decided to use pressed Autumn leaves we had collected for our Leaf Man inspired art and our wax resist watercolor leaves art project.

I love making Autumn leaf inspired arts and crafts projects to decorate our house for fall. There are so many beautiful colors and unique shapes of leaves. I often find myself picking up fall leaves that catch my eye wherever we may be: going to the library, walking out to the mailbox, exploring by our creek, going to the store. I’ve noticed that my kids have picked up the same habit as me with fall leaf collecting. I find leaves tucked in pockets, piled next to a carseat in the car, grasped in little hands coming in from an outdoor exploration. I love to hear “Mama, look at this one!” as Big Sister and Little Brother come running with a new, colorful fall leaf to add to our collection.

Making an Autumn leaf wreath fall decoration

We incorporated a naturalist learning experience in our leaf wreath art project for our homeschool nature lesson for the day. We sorted through our pressed leaves and separated them into matching leaf shapes. Then we identified the names of the trees (this is a user friendly tree ID book we use) that each type of leaf came from: maple, cottonwood, aspen, willow, alder, and burr oak. We discussed the habitat where the different varieties of trees grow and where we found the different varieties of trees and leaves.

Supplies:
Leaves of various shapes, sizes and colors pressed and dried

liquid glue (this kind worked great)

large piece of cardboard (used shipping boxes work great)

scissors

pencil

hole punch

piece of string

large circle pattern and medium circle pattern (we use large and medium size mixing bowls from the kitchen like these ones)

Directions:

Step 1: The first step is to the create the form for the wreath that the leaves will be glued on. Place the large circle pattern on the piece of cardboard and trace with a pencil. Place the medium size circle pattern inside the large circle you just traced and trace around the medium size circle pattern.

Step 2: Cut out the circle on the lines drawn. The inner circle is tricky to cut with scissors so I used a box cutter. Young children will need adult help with this step as the cardboard circle can be tricky to cut out. When done, you should have a cardboard frame for a leaf wreath that looks something like this:

Step 3: Spread the liquid glue on the cardboard frame and start placing leaves on the wreath. When overlapping leaves, place a little more glue on the back of the leaves to ensure they stick together.

Step 4: When your wreath is covered with leaves to your liking, use a hole punch to place a hole in the cardboard wreath frame about 1/4″ from the outer edge. Lace a piece of string through the hole and tie it in a knot to make a string loop to hang it up.

Step 5: Allow the glue on the fall leaf wreath to dry then hang it up and enjoy your lovely Autumn leaf inspired art project!

Big Sister loves things that sparkle so she decided to decorate her fall leaf wreath by gluing on sparkly gems from our craft supply stash.

Big Sister was thrilled with her sparkly Autumn leaf wreath and hung it on her bedroom door to decorate for fall. The leaf wreath I made graces the wall in our living room. I love the vibrant hues of Autumn glowing on the wreath that adds colorful warmth to the room as the temperatures are falling outside and snowflakes fall from the sky.

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