Halloween Activity Day 6: Autumn Leaves Window Hanging

The leaves have been changing for a few weeks now, offering a ton of fun activities outside.  I can remember, at like 10 years old, being so excited to go outside and rake up leaves. Then I would get out there and, after a few minutes of doing it, I would realize it was actually quite boring. I couldn’t remember why I thought it was going to be so fun.  My friends and I would rake them all up into a big pile and run through them, fall into them, throw them up over our heads….yeah, not really that fun.  Last week, I finally figured it out.  Raking leaves, running through them, jumping in them, throwing them around, is fun….for a 2 year old.  So it was fun at some point, I just, at 10, was too old to enjoy it.  It was quite the a-ha moment.

We spent a large segment of yesterday raking up leaves, running through them, laying in them, throwing them around, etc. Super cute. When it was starting to get a bit colder out and I was bored with the leaves I decided to walk with my LO around our cul-de-sac to see how many different colored and shaped leaves we could find.  Then we came into the house to warm up,  lay them out, talk about them and then press them between wax paper and make these surprisingly really pretty autumn window hangings.  This is actually an activity I can remember doing at home with my mom when I was probably 4 or 5 years old.

Autumn Leaves Window Hanging, “Stained Glass”

What you’ll need:

Autumn leaves (all shapes, colors, and sizes)

Wax Paper (2 sheets cut to the same size for arranging all of your leaves)

An iron

Heat your iron to the cotton setting (make sure it’s out of your child’s reach). Sort your leaves and then arrange them on top of one of your sheets of wax paper.  This is how my LO arranged them  – I then arranged them 1 layer thick. Make sure you leave at least a 1/2″ or so between leaves.

Top your leaves with the second piece of wax paper and press gently with the iron to seal the pages together.

Once the whole thing is sealed tape it to your window. It has a really pretty stained glass effect (which I’m pretty sure I appreciate more than my LO at this point in his life).