I have purposely avoided looking through pinterest for fall craft ideas. I don’t want to get in my head that they have to look a certain way. I knew I wanted to do something with my kids, but in keeping my current stance to allow my kids to let their own creativity out without so many boundaries, I couldn’t trust myself to stick with it if I found a bunch of awesome crafts. I wanted a craft they could complete on their own (I wanted to do it too but with them, not for them).

I decided to do a simple garland with them.

All the supplies we needed:
string (I used yarn)
Construction or scrapbook paper in fall colors
Pencil
Scissors
Leaf pattern (totally optional)
Tapestry needle (optional but makes stringing the leaves easier)

Ninja Boy was excited to get started and jumped into drawing and cutting out leaves before I ever printed off the leaf pattern (I just googled “free leaf pattern clip art”).
After I printed the leaf pattern, he tried tracing and cutting those out, but went back and forth between that and making his own (which I fully supported).
My Princess traced several but lost interest in cutting out. So I cut out some because I wanted to.

After we got all the leaves cut out, Ninja Boy used the hole punch to make a hole in the end of the leaf. He put a couple leaves on the yarn before I gave him the plastic tapestry needle to use, which then made the stringing a lot faster. I suggested he do a pattern with the colors, which he promptly switched the kind of pattern he was making after every sequence, therefore making no pattern whatsoever. That didn’t seem to bother him at all.
After all the leaves were on the string, I helped him put it up on the mantle. He proudly spread out the leaves and posed with the girls for a picture.

Do a simple fall craft with your family. It doesn’t and shouldn’t be perfect–just made 100% by you!