Coffee Filter Leaves ✽ Yarn Pumpkins

A few weeks ago, I planned to spend my Saturday crocheting and listening to a documentary. Then Mama and Daddy took Andrew on his belated birthday zoo trip, and Josiah was distraught at being left at home without Mama... so we browsed Pinterest together for a few minutes, and then I gathered up a few supplies we had sitting around the house and we started crafting together instead!

The first thing we did was make coffee filter leaves, inspired by the Artsy Mama blog...

Josiah colored his entire coffee filter, then went over the whole thing again with a black marker... several times. It was so wet BEFORE we sprayed it that it was ripping, and you could barely see any color! But after we sprayed it, all the color came back up to the top?! albeit muted. We used parchment paper over the pan, just because I didn't want Mama's pans discolored. And we set the coffee filters to dry on paper towels because I didn't want the table stained (Emmi saved her napkin because it was just "so pretty"... haha!). I was soooooo careful; there was even paper under everybody's coffee filters so it wasn't a problem if they went over the edge, because I didn't want Mama coming back home to her furniture rainbow colored because I decided to be fun for once ;). Also, washable markers are nice, otherwise her baby may have ended up discolored too ;). Haha!

Of course, they had to dry - for hours, because some small people (::cough, cough:: Joey) were so heavy handed with the markers and water, that they were soaking, haha. And so after supper I traced this cute little leaf template Tori made me onto one of them with permanent marker... three times, because if I placed it perfectly, that's how many I could get out of each filter. And I picked it up to move it and work on another... and realized with horror that I had forgotten to put something under it, and the permanent marker had bled through with every. single. stroke.

Rubbing alcohol works wonders to get marker off the table, for your information. Haha! And three sheets of paper under the coffee filters steers clear of accidents. And I DID tell Mama about the table. I'm just glad I didn't have to tell her with it destroyed, ha...

Then we had to cut alllllll those leaves. Children's scissors work better than regular scissors on coffee filters... I found that out on the last coffee filter, of course. I should have asked Tori for a simpler template ;). But they were so cute when they were done! And now they are hung up over our closet door, and they make me happy, but you don't get a picture "in use" because our closet needs cleaned and one of the doors is down for repairs ;). It was interesting that, although they were just random color "clouds", Mama could tell which filter was who's! Tori asked why I didn't make they use fall colors... she's like "pinks?". So now I'm a stinker and point out every pink leaf I see, hahaha!

While we waited for the leaves to dry, we made yarn pumpkins! We used some of my gift cards as the wrapping card. I thought I lost either five bucks or a pumpkin for a couple minutes, because it was wrapped in there so tight that I couldn't get it off, haha! But it eventually cooperated ;). These were MUCH less hands on for the supervisor than the leaves were (I was able to clean up our leaf mess while they worked), but they seemed to go over well, anyway... everyone wanted to make another! I walked into the church I volunteer at last week, and everybody was making some of these. They curled the pipe cleaner into vines, though, instead of twisting it into a stem, and it was cute, so I think we'll do that next time :).

What are some simple but fun crafts you've done that you would suggest I try with my little crafting buddies next :)? Have you ever made coffee filter leaves? Because they really are gorgeous!