Leafy Door Hanger

Celebrate the return of fall right from your front door. Kids will love putting this craft together by getting their hands dirty with finger painting.

What you'll need:

• 1 large piece of art paper or 2 sheets of white construction paper
• Acrylic craft paint in fall colors such as red, orange, brown, yellow, gold and green
• Scissors
• 15" twig or branch
• 4- 15" lengths of jewelry cord
• White craft glue
• Football-shaped cookie cutter (optional)

How to make it:

1. Using a paper plate or paint palette, squeeze out about a quarter-size dollop of each color of paint.
2. Finger paint the entire piece of art paper with the different colors. Let children be creative, just guide them if they start to blend colors too much as you can end up with a brownish gray color. Let the paint dry completely (see image).
3. When the paint has dried, turn the paper over and do the same thing on the other side. Let dry.
4. When paint has dried, use a football-shaped cookie cutter to draw out as many shapes as you can on the painted paper. If you don’t have a cookie cutter, draw out simple leaf shapes (see image).
5. Cut out the leaf shapes and set the scraps aside to use for another project.
6. Set a bug-free branch on the work surface. (See the tips section for methods of ridding branches from bugs.) Line up three pieces of the jewelry cord, evenly spaced from each other, along the stick.
7. Glue the leaves onto the cord, placing one under the cord, and then overlapping a second leaf over the first leaf and the cord. Repeat until all three cords have leaves (see image).
8. Tie the top end of the cords to the stick. Secure with some white craft glue (see image).
9. Tie the remaining piece of jewelry cord to both ends of the stick to create the hanger. Secure knots with some glue. Let glue dry.
10. Trim the excess cord ends.

Tips:

• Save the reserved scraps of painted paper for another project. These would be perfect for a mosaic craft.
• Rid twigs of bugs by soaking them in a combination of water and bleach. Fill a bathtub up half way and pour in 2 cups of bleach. Make sure to turn the twigs so all sides are soaked. After 24 hours, transfer the twigs into a large clean plastic bucket and soak in cold water for an additional 24 hours. Let dry completely before using.
• White craft glue is best and safest, but hot glue can be used to attach the cord to the sticks and will adhere faster.