The fall season has arrived and that means it’s the perfect time to take a nature walk and look for fall foliage to create fun fall crafts, like nature collages.
Here are inspirational nature collage crafts that you and your little ones can make to welcome the autumn season!
Tips for Preparing Materials for Leaf and Flower Collages
I have several tips before you go out and start foraging for nature’s treasures, such as autumn leaves, twigs, and flower petals.
Tip 1: Plan ahead of time what you want to craft so you know exactly what to pick up.
Tip 2: If you need to travel to collect fall foliage, bring a basket or container with a lid to store collected items so nothing gets blown away by strong winds.
Tip 3: Wait until you get home to make your nature collage. It could prove difficult to do your crafts outdoors where there are no flat surfaces and your leaves can easily be blown away by winds.
9 Traditional Nature Collage Ideas
The materials needed for the collages will be listed with each craft.
Since some of the crafts depend on what you find, I’ll write “nature’s treasure” for crafts that don’t need specific foraged materials.
1. Autumn Tree Nature Collage for Kids
Materials needed: Autumn leaves, sticks, liquid glue
Start with the essentials by making this straightforward autumn tree nature collage. You can use any shade of autumn leaves you find during your nature walk.
Just spread some liquid glue onto construction paper and paste your leaves and sticks onto it to form the tree!
This autumn nature tree is part of Red Ted Art’s Four Season’s crafts series.
2. Nature Collage Art Idea
Materials needed: leaves, sticks, stones, tree bark
Take inspiration from this nature collage by Steemit that’s a perfect way to welcome the new season.
They’ve applied beige paint onto a canvas, but you don’t need to go out your way and buy a painting canvas since you can just paste your foraged items onto construction paper.
I recommend a hot glue gun to secure heavier things, like stones and bark, and liquid glue for everything else.
3. Nature Collage Art With Tape
Materials needed: nature’s treasures, tape
If your children don’t like the sticky feeling of working with liquid glue, then try this nature collage by Learning 4 Kids that makes use of regular tape to attach collected nature items.
This activity will enhance your children’s creativity – the only limit is their imagination.
4. Double-Sided Tape Nature Collage
Materials needed: nature’s treasure, double-sided tape
If you like the convenience of tape, but don’t like regular tape ruining the aesthetic of your craft, then this double-sided tape craft is for you!
Attach the tape onto a cardboard, just like Learning and Exploring Through Play does, and let your kids have fun pulling the backing to expose the sticky side.
Kids can add all the details they want, like stars or hearts cut outs from the leaves.
5. Rainbow Collage
Materials needed: flower petals, leaves
Why wait for rainbows when you can make your own?
The challenge with No Time For Flashcards‘s rainbow collage is finding the right colors.
Green leaves are the easiest to find—they’re probably available in your backyard! Next are red and orange flowers; hollies are a great substitute.
The trickiest are the blue and violet flowers, which are rarer than a rainbow!
6. Leaf And Flower Collage
Materials needed: nature’s treasures, Con-tact paper
Decorate your windows with this leaf and flower collage by Kids Activities Blog. This craft makes decorating windows super easy because of the Con-tact paper!
Just like the previous crafts, you can take any type of foliage you’ve collected and attach it to the contact paper.
7. 3D Nature Collage
Materials needed: nature’s treasure, toilet paper roll
Here’s a collage that you and your children can make together that uses upcycled materials, just like these toilet paper roll crafts.
Bright Hub Education instructs us to add slits on the toilet paper to allow the kids to insert their found treasure.
This one is easy and simple to do with toddlers and preschoolers!
8. Nature Collage Insect Idea
Materials needed: leaves, sticks, acorn caps
Time to get super creative by making this nature collage insect. This craft idea will surprise you with how ingenious you and your kids can get!
Nature Crafts for Kids draw inspiration from the stunning insect flower arrangements by artist Raku Inoue. I highly recommend you check them out for inspiration, too!
9. Nature Rainbow Collage
Materials needed: petals of various colors
If you and your little ones are up for the challenge of searching for petals of each color of the rainbow, then you should create this wonderful nature collage idea by Our Days Outside.
It’s so rewarding to find the colored petals you’ll need, but don’t be pressured to find all the colors of the rainbow, and any shade of the color you need is more than sufficient!
Our Days Outside has a free printable template of the rainbow.
5 Nature Collage Art Ideas With Drawings
10. Leaf Collage Ideas
Materials needed: mostly leaves
These ideas from Krokotak allow your children to do as much as their imagination allows. Of course, you can help them design and draw some of these ideas, too.
Expand your children’s minds with Krokotak’s other ideas for nature collages (there are no specific instructions for these crafts – they merely serve as an inspiration for parents, teachers, and kids):
Fish and Chicken Leaf Collage
Spaceship Leaf Collage
Leaves Animal Collage
11. Habitat Nature Collage
Materials needed: nature’s treasure, construction paper, markers, glue
Here are a few other nature collage art ideas that can stimulate you and your kids’ imaginations.
These ideas from Child’s Play ABC introduce habitats to children in a fun and exciting way.
Broaden your horizons by looking at some of the designs on their website, such as:
- Mushrooms
- A bird’s nest
- Adorable ladybugs roaming in a garden (check out these other ladybugs crafts for kids)
- An underwater ecosystem
- Bees pollinating flowers, and so many more!
As you can see, there are endless possibilities for these kinds of nature collages.
12. Nature Tree Collage
Materials needed: leaves, bark, construction paper, markers
Here’s a very simple and easy nature collage for toddlers and preschoolers shared by Raising Hooks.
It’s so easy that all your children have to do is draw the outline of a tree and attach leaves and bark to add texture – that’s it!
13. Nature Painting Collage
Materials needed: nature’s treasure, paper, paint
Your toddler’s visual skills and ability to recognize colors will develop with this nature painting collage because it’s bursting with vibrant colors.
A Little Pinch of Perfect sprinkles a little bit of everything on this one. Indeed, it looks like there’s grass, birdseed, flowers, sticks, and feathers on this collage!
14. Hairstyle Nature Collage
Materials needed: leaves, printable template
Is your child interested in styling hair? If so, bring out their inner stylist by making these autumn hairstyles with them.
Not only does Krokotak provide a free printable template, they also have an easy-to-follow video tutorial.
2 Bonus Nature-Related Activities
If you went out of your way to gather those foraged materials, you might as well engage your kids in these bonus nature-related activities so nothing goes to waste.
15. Wax Paper Leaf Prints
Materials needed: leaves, paint, wax paper
Leaves don’t necessarily have to be green, yellow, or red. Just ask The Pinterested Parent – they show us how to create wax paper leaf prints.
This nature collage is created by attaching leaves to wax paper. Simply paint the leaves with your favorite colors and firmly press down on a piece of white paper to create colorful leaf prints.
16. Painting Leaves Art Activity
Materials needed: leaves, paint
These maple leaves look incredible! If you live in areas where there’s a lot of maple trees, then great! If not, no worries because this painting craft is doable with any type of leaf.
There’s no pattern to follow; you can make your leaf any color or design you desire with pretty results!
Extra Nature Collage
17. Wooden Cabin Under the Milky Way
Materials needed: leaves, white paint, dark blue construction paper
For a work of art that’s taken to the next level, here is a top-tier nature collage made by Recycling Art.
Save the Milky Way—which is achieved by splashing white paint on a night blue construction paper—this wooden cabin and hilly grassland are made entirely of natural elements.
Exciting and Engaging Nature Walks for Kids
These nature collages and activities give your children an opportunity to stretch their legs and get in touch with nature, which is perfect in a time when children are glued to screens.
Which of these nature collages did you enjoy making with your kids?
For other seasonal activities, check out these other crafts for kids: