Crafts from natural material

Natural material is almost always a creative product that is free, accessible and pleasant to interact with. Or, to be more precise, creative raw materials. You can make crafts from it with children for school exhibitions, or you can update the image of the house by adding the most natural colors and favorite textures to it.

Leaves are only bad because they wither quickly. But ways to preserve them in their best condition are readily available.

Here are 7 DIY leaf craft ideas.

• Garland. I would like it to hang longer, and therefore it is better to process the leaves ahead of time in glycerin or wax. And then string them on a fishing line or thread. You can even just attach it with clothespins. Such beauty is always appropriate in the nursery, but it immediately makes the living room more elegant. It is best to place the garland not on a variegated, but on a neutral wall (white is ideal). If red leaves alternate with yellow ones, it will be especially beautiful.

• Painted leaflets. This kind of creativity has become very popular in recent years. Acrylic paints and markers to help. Drawings can be copied (more precisely, these will be patterns), or even fancy ones can be used. For a home in which the boho style reigns, such leaves are a wonderful decor.

• Leaves in the sky. This is a whole installation that looks great over the dining table (for a festive home decoration - the idea is just great).The leaves themselves are attached to threads or a transparent fishing line and are fixed in the ceiling area in any convenient way. They hang down asymmetrically, forming an airy composition - heavenly leaf fall.

• Candlesticks with glowing leaves. The idea is as simple as it is great. The simplest glass jar needs to be pasted over with leaves, usually maple ones are used. The leaves should be dried, and it is better to glue on decoupage glue, which you can still use to go over from above, forming a varnish layer. If there is no such glue, it is easy to do it yourself: mix 200 ml of PVA, 100 ml of water and one and a half tablespoons of varnish (water-based).

• Framed leaves without backing. It is also a fashionable topic that captivates with its laconicism. Because there is only one sheet in the center of such a picture. It needs to be placed between two glasses, and it will seem as if it is hanging in the air. The beauty is that it can be some kind of special leaf: brought from a date or dropped directly into the palm of your hand, marking the arrival of autumn.

• Gift tag. If the packaging is important as an anticipation of a gift, but you can attach a small maple leaf (preferably waxed) to a small cardboard or paper tag, it will be charming.

• Bouquet for a long time. The most obvious fall leaf craft is a bouquet. But in a live form, it will not stand for long, therefore it is necessary to preserve the leaves. In order for them to remain plastic longer, after drying, they must be carefully dipped in hot wax (only hot, not boiling).

Cones are another grateful material for crafts, because they look original, do not deteriorate for a long time, and it is easy and simple to find it.

What interesting and original can be made from cones.

• Autumn wreath. It looks great on the door, on the wall, by the fireplace. The base of the wreath can be cardboard (or, if available, woven vines). The cones are dried and, if necessary, painted with acrylic paints. At first, the composition is simply laid out on the base, and only then is it glued onto hot glue. Additionally, the wreath can be decorated with acorns, nuts, berries, leaves, thuja twigs.

• Flowers from cones. Such bouquets look nice, they can also be used for school and kindergarten contests. The main requirement is that the bumps must lie down, dry out and open up. They are dyed, placed on wooden skewers (the latter must be wrapped with green teip tape). And then the required number of flowers is placed in a vase.

• Flower basket. The same theme is played up - the cones become buds. Drying, flaking, painting. And then you need to take a beautiful basket and fill it completely so that the flower heads look out of it. To do this, the heads need to be put on a wire, for example, and stick it itself into the foam rubber, which is covered with the bottom of the basket. It looks impressive.

• A very simple pine cone garland. It is done in a few minutes. You need to take a non-thin branch, cut it as wide as you want to make a garland. Tie the cones to the threads, which will match the color of the wall. A thread ties the branches from above. The cones will hang down, asymmetrically, and against the background of the wall, invisible threads will help create the illusion of weightlessness. Very laconic and charming. Hang on a wall, above a table, or anywhere else.

The main thing in working with buds is to prepare them. You can simply leave them in any open container, in baskets, boxes, or simply sprinkle on the newspaper. Lay in only one layer.

The shell of a nut (especially a walnut) very quickly creates analogies that can be immediately used in a craft. If you want not just to create a turtle or a ladybug, but to do something more unusual, you can try the miniature genre. Only work will probably have to be done with tweezers. For example, a suspension boat can be made from a half of a walnut shell. Fill it inside with coarse sea salt (for glue), and sprinkle it with sparkles on top, which also fix it. A wooden skewer will be a mast; cut out a sail from an old book. The shell itself can be varnished or dried with gold. This jewelry can become all-season - very graceful and beautiful.

Nuts make cute mice, as well as secret boxes for your favorite jewelry. You can also make a nutty bouquet. To do this, each nut must be fixed on a long wooden skewer, which will then be fastened at the bottom. For decoration, you can take dried flowers or something like that. A good and original craft gift will turn out.

And these ideas help to inspire acorns and chestnuts, which are also a lot underfoot in autumn.

We offer 6 beautiful uses for acorns and chestnuts.

• A wreath with a moss backing immediately plunges the house into an autumn mood. It may also require burlap and coarse rope to create it. Well, cones can interfere with the alternation of acorns and chestnuts.

• Such characters are asked to be created - the wire and movable eyes will help in this.

• And this is a composition in which apples are used as candlesticks, and the background will be acorns / chestnuts floating nearby (in this case, nuts, but their "brothers" are also suitable).

• Hearts. From chestnuts that are attached to a wire, you can get such a pair of hearts. Cute and romantic.

• Acorns can become a decorative candlestick, which is just what you need for autumn evenings.

• And also subtle and graceful painting with acrylic paints on chestnuts turns them into unusual stones that will decorate the candle composition.

• Branches and twigs - a separate category of natural materials, from which you can create non-trivial decor, special crafts. For example, you can imitate a window frame - berries and cones help complete the composition, and an artificial bird makes it especially charming. For autumn-winter decor, this is a very good option.

• Interesting in its simplicity and romance, such a bird from the branches. Leaves will complement the work a little. It can be very carefully fixed with hot glue on thick paper or cardboard. By the same principle of laying out branches, you can create not only birds, but do a whole series of works.

• Houses made of twigs are also amazingly realistic. Here the basis is clear: the branches become logs, stick together, but the windows and other structural elements need to be supplemented, using imagination to the maximum.

Such materials help to create voluminous compositions, as they say, for all occasions.

Five fascinating ideas using marine materials.

• The life of marine life is always interesting - especially if it is so cutely depicted. What is not an option for a family application.

• Pebble flowers are absolute tenderness. But you will have to try very carefully and firmly to fix them on the plane.

• And such a painting on stones turns them into a very colorful, bright composition, every detail of which you want to consider.

• And if you paste over an inconspicuous vase with shells, it will immediately become much brighter and more interesting.

• Children will also master such a craft, only you need to help them a little (depending on the age of the child). In this way, an interesting imitation of the pool is obtained.

And, of course, how to do without a homemade photo frame, which is lined with pebbles or shells: and in the center is a photo in memory of your summer vacation.

And here you can arrange a conditional division: the first group of works is simpler - suitable for exhibitions in kindergarten.The second is more difficult, because the crafts are already going to school. Well, the third describes something that you don't need to carry anywhere, but it is better to leave it in the house.

Usually in the fall, the exhibition "Gifts of Nature" is held in the gardens, where fairy-tale heroes, peacocks, firebirds, deer, bears and so on are constructed from forest (and not only) materials.

A lot of interesting things can be done at the exhibition for kids on the theme "Golden Autumn".

• Mushrooms. From twigs and seeds, you can gradually form caps of fungi, and dried grass or moss is used for the legs. The main thing for applique work (and this could be a decorative wall rug) is to find a beautiful background.

• Unusual creatures. From natural cones and nuts, with wings from leaves, you can make such interesting characters. The whole family will join the work.

• Insects are also perhaps the best heroes for making them from autumn materials. The list of the most popular includes a dragonfly and various beetles.

• A bird on a branch. It is quite possible to do this kind of work in half an hour at home. Children are happy to be involved in the process, even those who are still only in the younger group.

• Caterpillar made of chestnuts. The classics of this genre, very exciting for children.

For schoolchildren, more serious master classes will be required.

Primary school children usually become active participants in such exhibitions.

Examples of crafts by class:

• Grade 1 - a house with a tree, in which a lot of natural materials are involved at once, a whole plot composition is obtained;

• Grade 2 - deer on a cut of a tree, the guys are almost completely ready to cope with such a job;

• Grade 3 - a basket of cones requires more perseverance in creating;

• Grade 4 - the owl looks charming, almost everything is used, from cones to branches.

And more about how to really transform the interior with the help of natural materials.

Here are some fresh ideas:

• painted pumpkin is a laconic autumn decor that looks very conceptual (pumpkin and paints are combined, and you can also add a tray of glued maple leaves treated with glycerin);

• a vase of branches with an autumn bouquet - the principle of creation is simple, but on the fireplace, chest of drawers, coffee table, dining table, this simple craft looks very cute;

• serving compositions - cones, leaves, branches, berries (sometimes artificial materials are combined with natural ones);

• a branch with a garland - looks good as a suspension to the cornice above the window;

• a garland of cones under the window - it looks original, elegant as a winter decor.

Let each idea find its new author-performer, and be embodied at its best!

For more on crafts made from natural materials, see the video below.