It's almost Fall! Leaf Banner

To celebrate Fall's arrival, we started with a leaf rubbing banner to put up. We took a little hike and collected as many different kinds of leaves as we could find... except the poison ivy. We found lots, but we let it be. :) Then we took them all home a laid them out on the kitchen floor.

We taped a long piece of paper over top of them, and got down to business rubbing them with crayons. It took Kaia awhile to get the hang of using the crayons sideways, but once she understood the result she got from it, she went to town. She wanted it took, "look like a rainbow," so we used lots of colour.

 I thought the lines from the tile gaps would be pretty subtle, but when Kaia discovered the texture difference she started scribbling in them. Ah, well :)

Then we got out the watercolours and painted over the entire thing. The crayon wax, resists the paint. Kaia doesn't use a whole lot of discretion when it comes to how much water a piece of paper can handle, so I just kept a paper towel handy and half an eye on what she was doing, soaking up pools as they appeared.

Finished banner, it was hard to get a very good picture of the long banner, but here's what I got.

I think it looks great, although it could probably do with a pass from the iron ;) I'll get around to that some day, I'm sure. lol.

(Thank you Filth Wizardry for the idea)