Leaf Printing

What kind of a crazy mom takes her kids outside, gives them leaves, rocks, fabric and a big piece of wood and says lets make some art? ME!!!
So I have one of Maddie's friends here this week as part of my daycare and so I have planned a few art activities to keep us busy this week (because otherwise life with 4 kids around would be boring right!).
Anyway, we started off with a nature walk, they each had a paper bag and we collected an assortment of leaves, pine cones and bright red berries!

When we got home we went into the back garden and I told the girls to find as flat a stone as possible like this!

Next placed a long piece of MDF on the ground and gave them each a piece of unbleached natural muslin. The instructions were to place the leaf on a piece of paper (protects the wood from color) and place the fabric on the leaf. Next smash the the living daylights out of the leaf with the rock! The noise of 4 children banging rocks on a piece of wood was tremendous to say the least (I think my eardrums fell out!) but they all had a blast. As the leaf is decimated it releases it's beautiful autumn colors onto the fabric making a unique looking print!

They all made one square and one small rectangle. The smaller rectangle was mounted onto colored construction paper and laminated to make a book mark!

This was a fairly easy, inexpensive, and fun craft. The materials were made by nature or I already had them plus the girls all had a great time!

By the way the original instructions for this project called for a hammer to bash the leaves with, hmmm 4 kids with hammers, I'm not that crazy!