Cool weather, leaf blowers, shorter days—it can only mean one thing. It’s time for fall crafting! Crafting is fun all year-round, but there’s something about this season that makes kids crafts so much cuter. There are so many cute themes and color schemes. Crafts are great for when kids are cooped up inside, and you don’t need a big budget to pull off some of the best fall projects. A lot of your materials (like leaves, for example) are completely free.
We looked around and found the cutest inexpensive fall crafts for your tribe of littles to try out this season. Let’s get crafty!
1. Leaf Printed Autumn Banner
This fall kids’ craft is fun for all your littles, and it has the added benefit of being great fall decoration for your home. You’ll need paint, some twine, and cardstock, but you can probably find everything else lying around your house. Let your kids search the yard their favorite leaves and get creative with fall colors. You might need to help string it all together into a festive fall banner, but your kids will be proud to see their work draped over the fireplace or hanging against the wall.
Happiness is Homemade has the full instructions.
2. Cup Spiders
Aren’t these creepy crawlies so cute?! Perfect for Halloween, this kids craft is easy enough for young kids but also interesting enough for more advanced crafters. You can make it more involved by letting kids paint their own cups with their favorite designs. This sample spider uses googly eyes, but if you don’t have any of those, you can use just about anything else in their place. Let your kids paint their own spider faces, use stickers, or cut out shapes with construction paper. The pipe cleaner legs are great because they’re flexible, and your kids can choose how they want their spiders to look.
You’ll find a full set of instructions with One Little Project.
3. Leaf Turkey
All you need for this cute fall craft is a yard (or park or sidewalk) full of leaves and some construction paper scraps. Let your kids scour the leaf pile for the brightest leaves they can find. Encourage them to find a few of each fall color, and if there are different shapes, that’s even better. After your outdoor expedition, you can head inside for some fun craft time. For young kids, put the turkey together ahead of time. But older kids are capable of building their own turkeys if you give them the pre-cut pieces. Let the leaves be the feathers and see how your kids imagine their festive fall turkeys.
Crafty Morning has great samples to check out.
4. Paper Scarecrow
The best kids crafts are the ones you can hang up around the home to display with pride. These paper scarecrows can go on the fridge, the mantle, and pretty much anywhere that needs a little bit of festive decoration. Your kids can completely personalize their happy little scarecrows by using their favorite colors and even different types of “hair.” If your kids are okay with scissors, let them cut out their own hats and facial features. If that’s a bit beyond their skills, they’ll still have fun attaching pre-cut pieces to their accordion-style faces.
Meaningful Mama did it, and it was a big hit.
5. Fall Leaf Potato Stamping
You can never go wrong with a classic potato stamp. It takes only a few minutes to set up, and you can let even the littlest artists go to town without too much assistance on your end. Try to pick out potatoes that are long and skinny to get a good leaf shape and give little hands something to hold on to. You can draw a tree and let your kids add the leaves, or simply let them cover a page with their pretty multi-colored stamps. Don’t forget to hang them up to show off their good work!
How Wee Learn has a quick tutorial for potato stamping newbies.
6. Leaf Printing
Here’s another fall kids’ craft you can set up in a matter of minutes. Leaf rubbings are easy to do, and there’s even the opportunity to teach kids about the structure of leaves and all the different shapes and sizes. Half the fun will be getting outside to find leaves from different kinds of trees. If you don’t have a yard with trees, take a trip to the park or a public green space. The more leaves, the better!
Learn more about leaf rubbing with First Palette.
7. Q-Tip Fall Trees
You only need three things for this fun fall craft: paper, paint, and a few q-tips. If your kids are little, paint them a quick tree trunk with a couple of sparse branches. If they’re older, they can probably handle that part on their own. The fun part of this craft is decorating those branches. The q-tips make great paint brushes to put down delicate little dots in different colors. If you want, sketch out a simple shape and have your kids fill in the shape with their painted leaf dots.
This teacher’s blog has some great examples.
8. Marbled Leaves
You’ll want to lay down a few layers of newspaper or some other kind of protective covering before starting this painting craft, but to be honest, the mess is half the fun! Marbled leaves look so pretty, and the paint mixture is always fun to work with. You can cut out your own leaves from paper, or go outside and get the real things. You can make this craft as simple or as detailed as you want.
Learn the art of marbling with Typically Simple.
9. Fall Yarn Wrapping
If you’re looking for quick, no-mess fall craft for your littlest kiddos, this is it. Yarn wrapping is perfect for helping kids develop fine motor skills. Gather up your odds and ends of old yarn and cut out a few fall-themed shapes. Encourage kids to wrap the yarn in all different directions and use multiple colors if you can. The finished products end up looking pretty cute, and you could even turn them into magnets or bookmarks.
See how Paper And Glue did this fall craft here.
10. Handprint Spiders in Webs
This is one of my favorite fall-themed kids’ crafts. It’s great because it’s interesting for the kids to put together, it ends up looking super cute, and you don’t need a lot of supplies to make it happen. A big pair of googly eyes is always a good idea, but if you don’t have extra eyes floating around your craft closet, you can make your own out of cardboard paper or paint. To prepare the craft, all you have to do is punch some holes in the edges of a paper plate. The kids can get creative with the rest.
Check out these cute spiders with Mom Endeavors.
11. Paint Chip Monsters
Kids of all ages will have fun creating their own monsters with this simple craft idea. The best part is, it’s basically free to put together! Visit any home improvement store and pick as many paint chip samples as you’ll need. Think of green for Frankenstein, orange for pumpkins, purple for witches, and whatever other color strikes your interest. You’ll need to put a little work into cutting out different facial features before you let your kids get to building, but it’s all basic shapes. Older kids could even help with the cutting.
Liz on Call did this craft, and they turned out super cute!
12. Paper Bag Owls
If you have paper bags, there are literally countless different crafts you can do. It’s one of the most versatile crafting materials out there! A good one for fall is the paper bag owl. It’s a simple process of attaching eyes, wings, a beak, and whatever other feathery features your kids can think of. And when you’re done, you have a great little puppet for even more play time.
See the art of paper bag crafting with Buggy and Buddy.
13. Sticky Fall Tree
Give your kids the opportunity to decorate the walls for fall with this super engaging craft. You’ll need a large sheet of contact paper, an old cereal box (or any other kind of thin cardboard or construction paper), and some fall-colored tissue paper. Kids will have fun decorating their barren trees with all the beautiful colors of fall, and you can leave up their creation for as long as it sticks.
How Wee Learn talks about how to set it up.
14. Autumn Tree
There are so many fall crafts for kids that you can do with leaves. This simple tree craft doesn’t take too long, and there are hardly any supplies to gather or mess to clean up. You can use paint for your tree trunks, or make it simpler by using markers, crayons, or construction paper. Your kids can go forage for their favorite leaves and then glue them to their trees to celebrate the beauty of fall. The finished creations are perfect for fall decorations!
Crafts on Sea explains more about how to do this fun craft.
15. Paper Roll Scarecrow
There’s nothing scary about these scarecrows—they’re actually really cute! Toilet paper and paper towel rolls are great for crafting, so you should get in the habit of saving them up. They’re free, and there’s so much you can do with them. For this scarecrow craft, you can use markers, paint, yarn, straw, or anything else you already have in the house. You’ll barely have to dip into your craft budget, and it’s a good way to use up material odds and ends.
Make it up as you go or get inspiration from Still Playing School.
