Leaf Man

JillyBean has been obsessed with leaves ever since the fall colors began to appear last month. We cannot go outside without her picking up at least one leaf just to hand it off to me to save. "Oooh, mama," she says. "This is a good one." Needless to say, we have quite a collection of yellow, orange and red leaves of all shapes. And I can't bring myself to throw them away. Finally last week I got an idea - let's make a leaf man.

I was inspired by two things: the beautifully illustrated book, Leaf Man, by Lois Ehlert; and our first week's art class where Jilly used glue water as a homemade decoupage.

This morning Jilly and I took a little stroll through the woods near our house to add to our collection and also to find a few other odds and ends to complete our leaf man. I know, it seems strange that we would gather more leaves, but in order to make a proper leaf man you must have a vast selection of leaves.

I made the glue water using one part water and about one-and-a-half parts glue (you need a little more glue for the leaves than you would if you were doing a project with paper). Then we pulled out the construction paper and went to work. First we picked out which leaves would represent which body part, arranged them on the paper, then dipped our paint brushes in the glue water and smeared it all over the leaves and paper to stick. We used acorn shells for the eyes and simply glued them on to the face.


I'm very proud of the way these guys turned out as is Jilly. She simply beamed as she admired the final creation. She finally has a permanent home for her beloved leaves.