My Crunchy Little Friends

I am a leaf lover, I admit it.  No kidding, I am!  I love the fragile, brand new ones that come with spring, the strong, waxy, green ones of mid-summer, and the beautifully colored ones that grace us each fall.  The only form of the leaf I don't care for is the one that shows up right before winter.  The dried, brown crunchy variety that cover the ground when the first snowfall comes.   The kind that my dog and my kid and my husband track into the house on a daily basis.  The kind that as soon as you touch them, they fall into a billion pieces.  The kind that you hear on every horror flick as the boogeyman tracks down his victim in the woods.  

Today we were stuck at home waiting for the delivery of our new stove.  I thought this was the perfect chance to try this craft using these annoying little brown monsters.  So, I headed out and collected a bucket full of dried leaves from my backyard.

I brought them in and Amelia instinctively knew what to do with them.  She immediately began to crunch them up into tiny pieces.  And despite my pleas to "keep them in the bowl please!", they soon spread to the table, the chair where she was sitting, the chair where I was sitting, the floor, the dog's food bowl, the kitchen sink, and in her freakin' bed, one story up.  Before my very eyes, these things were multiplying!

After they were all scrunched up, Amelia decided she was "all done", so we took a break.  Essentially, that meant that the leaves were then spread throughout the family room and playroom as well.  She was soon ready to return to the craft, I can only assume she was looking for more opportunities to distribute the leaves throughout the house.

I drew some leaf shapes on the paper with glue and then she slowly sprinkled the dry leaves on top of the outline.  

I really wish I knew the website where I got this idea because they turned out WAY better than ours!  

We tried two leaves before deciding that maybe a tree would be a better bet.  Amelia was eager to fill in the tree (I think she was relieved that I was drawing something she could actually recognize) and we even made a big leaf pile too!

Then, we went about the process of de-leafing the house.  Which apparently is going to be an ongoing project.  After vacuuming the entire house this evening, I found no less than 13 leaf fragments after the vacuum was safely returned to the closet and I have a feeling those aren't the last I will be seeing.

But just for the record--it was totally worth it!