5 Fall Crafts for Kids

The change in season is always a great time to introduce some fun new crafts. These 5 Fall Craft Ideas for Kids will encourage them to be creative and resourceful as we transition into the season of crunchy leaves and crisp air!

Five Easy Fall Crafts for Kids

1. Rainbow Pumpkins

We adore magazines, and one of our favorites is Oriental Trading. We can spend hours looking at all the fun things for sale. Oriental Trading had these nifty black pumpkins that you can scratch off the black to make a face, and there's a rainbow underneath the black part. My daughter really wanted them, so we decided to recreate our own rainbow-faced pumpkins.

Just paint a rainbow with watercolor paints on a paper, let the rainbow dry, outline your pumpkin with black ink (or watered down black acrylic paint), and then fill in the pumpkin with black. Happy rainbow pumpkins, Macey's jack-o'-lantern dream come true! Our paper got all warped from the watercolors, so I set it under a heavy book overnight once dried. Using a heavier card stock or watercolor paper would eliminate the paper waves.

2. Apple Stamps

This is an oldie but goodie in my book. Just chop an apple in half (through the middle, not stem to end) and the center seeds make a star shape. Dip the cut edges in paint, and stamp away. My kids love this because it's special; I only bust this out when apples are on our tree ready for picking.

3. Marshmallow Stamps

We were munching on mallows while crafting, and Henry used his as a stamp (just a regular sized marshmallow). Again, they loved it because it was special, and it worked incredibly well.

One of the things that I liked about marshmallow stamping was that it was easy to assign one marshmallow to each color of paint. Sometimes the only paintings I have on my fridge are brownish-black because the kids just swirl all the colors together when painting with a brush. The marshmallows were fat enough for my fifteen-month-old to manage on his own, too; I just had to make sure he didn't eat what he was painting with!

The marshmallow stamps would make great fall leaves on a tree or apples the kids could add a stem to if you are wanting a little more direction than polka-dots.

4. Painted Clay Shapes & Magnets

I found a really neat clay, similar to salt dough, but the result is much nicer and pure white. It's made by cooking baking soda, corn starch, and water on the stove until it makes a dough. I rolled it out like cookies and then used cookie cutters to cut fall shapes (apples, leaves, pumpkins). You just bake the clay in the oven to harden it, and you are ready to paint.

The recipe and detailed instructions to make this great, plain white modeling clay can be found at The Woodside Kitchen. I glued a round magnet to the back of these to turn them into fun fridge decor.

5. Watercolor & Ink-Blown Shadow Trees

This is by far my favorite of the art projects listed, and I hope you try it. We actually did this when I was a kid at my elementary school. I obviously liked it all those years ago to remember it still.

Paint a paper with sunset-inspired colors. After the water colors have dried, put a few drops of ink (or watered-down black acrylic paint) on the paper, and use a straw to blow the ink around. Add a few more drops, here and there, and continue blowing until you have something resembling a tree.

Use a brush (or your finger) to paint a landscape on the bottom of the page. Once the black has dried, use a black marker to add more details. Permanent markers are nice and dark, but a washable one would work, too. My paper got all warped from the watercolors, so I set it under a heavy book overnight once dried. Using a heavier card stock or watercolor paper would eliminate the paper waves.

I added a moon, a witch on a broom stick, two owls in the tree, a haunted house with a claw coming out of the door on the hill, and a little graveyard and fence. You could add anything you like!

This post was originally published in 2012, and has been updated and rephotographed in October 2019.

These are quick and easy ideas for 5 fall crafts for kids, and I'm sure you have all the stuff at home to do them. Just lay out all the supplies, whip up of a batch of homemade graham crackers for a snack, turn on your favorite Halloween tunes, and surprise your kids when they walk in the door from school. You'll have a fridge full of art before dinner. If you try any of these I'd love to know about it. Thanks so much for reading, and happy crafting to you.