Make a Kid's Fall Leaf Collage

Collage of different green leaves with white plate and bowl of paste on a table nearby.

Collage making with leaves-

It is fall and the leaves are turning color and beginning to drop where I live in the central U.S. I often pick them up and bring them home just to sit on the table, the colors and shapes are so beautiful.

Take a leaf gathering nature walk!

Grab your grand and pick up some of those pretty leaves to make a kid’s fall leaf collage. It is amazing what ideas the kids will come up with using just leaves as their art medium when they make a leaf collage picture.

Hopefully the weather will be nice for your nature walk to collect up leaves from a variety of trees, bushes, flowers, and other plants of various sorts. The more variety the better. We did this activity awhile back and there wasn’t much variety of color in the leaves yet.

There are a variety of leaf shapes as well. We did a Tree Leaf Identification Nature Journal in a previous post, and it is a fun project to make with leaves as well. Check out the idea here and perhaps collect leaves for that purpose at the same time!

Two girls side by side starting leaf collage with paint brushes and bowl of paste between them.

Leaves of three, let them be!

Note: In our area it is always good to remind kids what poison ivy looks like and to not touch it. “Leaves of three, let it be.” That would not be a good surprise!

Set up for a creative leaf collage

I gave them each an 8.5x11 inch piece of Cardstock paper to design upon and later glue the leaves to. This is a heavier weight paper that works well with projects using glue.

We spread our leaves out on the table and shared between the grands.

Immediately the kids were examining the leaves and you could see the gears in their heads turning, creative ideas formulating.

Girl wearing red dress with watermelons starts putting together her leaf collage on white paper.

Leaf collage designs

Leaf collage animals are especially fun to create, but the kids can create any design that they can imagine (and that’s a lot!).

Just play around with designs for a while. What shapes of leaves work for various parts of your design? How does changing the leaves you use change your design? Can you layer the leaves to make a different design or effect? Or put leaves in a repeating pattern?

Or could you make a lion, butterfly, rabbit, dog, or a bird? Could you make a car, tree, or a person?

The pictures will be a bit wonky looking, but it is like a puzzle to get the leaves to make the pictures in your imagination!

It’s ok if the kids want to cut leaves to make an effect, like a bend in the legs of an animal, but encourage them to use them as they are if possible.

Girl with blonde hair painting the back of a leaf with paste for her leaf collage.

Glue down your fall leaf collage

Next, glue the leaves down to the paper. We used old paint brushes to brush glue all over the surface of the back of the leaves. Very simple.

Tip: Encourage the grands to arrange their design first and then glue them down to the paper so they can arrange things the way that they want before they are permanently affixed to the paper.

Girl pressing down leaf onto paper for her leaf collage.

Page protector or contact paper to finish

When the glue was dry, I slipped them into Page Protectors to protect the leaves as they dried but still give a bit of air circulation. It would work fine to put Clear Contact Paper over them as well.

In fact, it works well to place a piece of Clear Contact Paper, stick side up on the table and put the leaves directly onto the contact paper instead of using glue. Then covering the picture up with a second piece of Clear Contact Paper. This gives an entirely different effect.