Our 15+ Favorite Easy, Artsy, and Cozy Fall Kids' Crafts

Whenever fall rolls around, I find myself staying at home more, drinking hot drinks, and crafting with the kids. If you're looking for some easy, cozy, artsy, cute, and affordable kids' crafts, check out this list of my top 15+ favorite fall crafts. 

15+ Easy, Artsy, and Cozy Fall Kids Crafts

Family Watercolor Heart Banners (and our 6 Favorite Valentine's Crafts)

This super sweet watercolor heart banner is a great Valentine's Craft celebrating the entire family.  During a recent playdate, I had the preschoolers make their own heart banners for their family.  The children enjoyed painting, gluing, and identifying all the members in their family.  Here's how we made this craft.

Family Watercolor Heart Banner

Oil Pastel Rock Monsters

These little rock monsters are super cute and fun to make around Halloween!  Just grab some rocks and oil pastels and you're ready to go!

Oil Pastel Rock Monsters

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Gorgeous "Painted" Oil Pastel Crystal Sun catchers

Have you ever tried "painting" with oil pastels?  Every so often I feel all artsy-smartsy and pull out my big 'ol box of oil pastels and do an easy oil pastel craft with my kids.  This past week I felt the urge and we made these crystal suncatchers by "painting" with oil pastels.  The results were pretty gorgeous and the process was fun too!

"Painted" Oil Pastel Crystal Sun Catchers

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Gorgeous, Kid-Made Birthday Banner (And my dream job...)

A few weeks ago, we invited a few school friends over for a play date.  Since having a baby less than a year ago, I've been a bit (ok... let's be honest... VERY) nervous about having people over.  I'm always pooped and don't really feel like entertaining.  (Ever feel that way too?)  But, I pushed myself to try and that's how I found myself with 5 kids running around our fairly small home.  The kids played with toys and ran around outside... and surprisingly a lot of time was spent inside, painting and making art.

What?

You read that right, friends.  Our teacher's birthday was coming up and I invited the children to help me paint her birthday banner.  Once the kids saw the papers and art supplies on our table... they got right to work, creating the beautiful birthday letters below.

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Fall Leaf Scratch Art (and related books!)

Are the leaves changing colors where you are?  Every year I look forward to seeing the beautiful reds, oranges, and yellows.  Today I wanted to share this really easy fall craft that doubles as a STEAM activity.  It's a science and art activity that helps kids to represent how leaves change colors in the fall.

Fall Leaf Scratch Art

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Artsy Paper Bag Stars!

I've seen versions of these paper bag stars all over the internet for awhile now.   And last weekend, we finally got a chance to make our very own version.  Half art project, half craft, these artsy paper bag stars are such a unique way to showcase children's art and decorate your home!

Artsy Paper Bag Stars      

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MAGIC Color Transfer Art!

Did you ever play with carbon paper as a kid?  (Hmm... have I just seriously dated myself here?)  I LOVED that stuff.  You stuck it behind a sheet of blank paper, went to town doodling, lifted up your carbon paper and then ooh la la!  Instant copy.  So, so cool.  Today I'm sharing an easy and fun art activity that hearkens back to good old carbon paper.  We're making ourselves some colorful, color transfer art!  (It's like making your very own rainbow carbon transfer paper!)

Magic Color Transfer Art!

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Hand Print Franz Marc Expressionist Art with Kids

Hi friends!  Today's art activity is a super easy one that involves looking at colors, emotions, animals, and making hand prints.  It's such a great activity to do with kids of all ages!  Today we're inspired by German Expressionist Franz Marc's Blue Horse Paintings.

Hand Print Expressionist Art with Kids!

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Giant Canvas Family Cooperative Art

Ever have one of THOSE weeks?  Where life is chaotic, stressful, and messy?  Where things don't go your way and you find yourself late at night picking apart all the things that went wrong?   Well... we just had one of those weeks. (Ok... if I'm going to be honest... probably one of those months...)  And I wish I could say that I was patient and loving and wise and kind and strong... but I wasn't.

When life spirals out of control, I find myself doing two things- (1) taking naps and (2) doing easy art and craft activities.  It's surprising how these two activities revive my spirits.  So today I wanted to share this really easy art activity that my preschooler and I recently worked on together.  Inspired by Meri Cherry, we made our own GIANT family process art.   

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Shiny Art Necklaces

These shiny aluminum art necklaces contain everything that I love about kids craft all rolled into a single craft.  They allow kids to freely create art without worrying about making things "right" or "perfect."  They're super easy to make. (My preschooler didn't need help at all!) And they use everyday materials.  (Fancy-shmancy materials aren't needed!)  Annnd... the resulting craft looks pretty smashing, wouldn't you say?

Shiny Aluminum Art Necklaces

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Are you ready to make yourself some shiny aluminum necklaces? (Hmm.. now that I'm thinking of it, they kind of look like cloisonne beads, don't you think?)  Let's create!

Colorful Flip Flop Artwork

We love, love, LOVE easy kid art ideas.  While dreaming of warm, sunny, summer weather, my preschooler and I channeled some good-time summer vibes with this super cute and fun colorful flip flop artwork!

Colorful Flip Flop Artwork  

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Free Printable New Year's Crown

If you're looking for the EASIEST New Years Craft ever, then today's post is for you.  Why not make your very own New Years Crowns with the kiddos?  I've got two great ideas for you- one that's a little more artsy and one that's a print out and color in (for free!)

Make (or Print out)  New Year's Crowns

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Squirt Squirt Ocean Art!

If there's anything in the world that will brighten up a preschooler's day.... it's water play.  Water is seriously magical.  Give a kid a bucket of water, a pool, a water gun, or a hose...  and bam!  Laughter and good times are bound to be in your future!

Today 4 other creative preschool bloggers and I are sharing some really easy and engaging water activities.  You can find the entire list at the bottom of this post!

In our home, we've really loved making Ocean Crafts and rainy day process art. So I thought it would be fun to combine the two with this fun Ocean Process Art Activity!  We got a chance to use a whole bunch of art materials (including water guns) to create some ocean-inspired artwork.

Squirt, Squirt Ocean Process Art!

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Make Matisse Murals with Kids

The more I look at Matisse's artwork, the more it really speaks to me.  I love his vibrant colors and the way his artwork expresses such movement.  Around this time last year, Chuck and I made Matisse Collages from construction paper.  We had such fun making them together... that I thought we could take it to the next level... wall murals!

Making Matisse Murals with Kids

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Yup.  We made ourselves Matisse mural.  The idea was inspired by this gorgeous kate zaremba wallpaper.  (Love, love, loooove!)   Here's how we did it!

Rock Tic-Tac-Toe Game

Ah, oil pastels.  After seeing that they could be used to decorate pumpkins, I thought they would be perfect for creating a cute and colorful rock tic-tac-toe game.

Rock Tic-Tac-Toe Game

Halloween Art: No Carve Colorful Pumpkins

Looking for an easy way to colorfully decorate your Halloween pumpkins this year?  Then this no-carve method is right up your alley!  Here's one great way to make some fabulous, colorful Halloween art with the kids!

Halloween Art:  No Carve Colorful Pumpkins!

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Watercolor and Crayon Resist Notebooks

Even though I don't like clutter, I'm also a secret horder of two things.  One is cardboard.  (Happy sigh.)  The other is Chuck's artwork.... which is a growing problem because we keep painting and I never know what to do with the art that I like.  I hang some up in his room.  I turn other pieces into new artwork.  I also use some for cards and stationary (see here , here, and here for some of my favorites)  Goodness, I even turned one into a magnetic fishing game!  Well recently I began turning his artwork into lovely little handmade notebooks.  

Watercolor and Crayon Resist Notebooks

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These were made from from some old watercolor and crayon resist artwork... and I love them.  They're personal, lovely, and practical.  I use them to jot down all my bloggy and crafty ideas throughout the day.  And oh yeah, they're super easy to make too!  So let's get crafting!

Using cooking oil to blur oil pastels

I had no idea that plain old cooking oil could be used to blur oil pastels.  But once I found out, I had to try it for myself.  One afternoon I doodled away on some computer paper while Chuck napped.

Then, I used Q-tips and swabbed my pictures in canola oil.

The colors and lines blurred together.  The images also became translucent.  Here's how a picture looked before:

And here's how it looked after:

But what to do with my oily pictures?  After drying up the excess cooking oil, I traced and cut out some circles.

Then I taped my circles to the window and made some lovely sun catchers.

Hrmm... I wonder what kind of art Chuck would make....

(On a more serious note- Given the terrible tragedy that happened in Boston, I debated whether to put this post up.  Is writing about crafts too frivolous?  *Sigh*  It's just so sad that people could do something so horrible to others.  *Sigh*  In the end, I've decided to upload this post.  I can't do anything to directly help those affected.  However, I can keep praying and writing posts that hopefully bring a bit of cheer to anyone who reads them...)