Making Coffee Filter Maple Leaves

We made autumn leaves this week using coffee filters, markers, marker dots and a spray bottle filled with water.  We have made these leaves for several years now and we love just how much they resemble real autumn maple leaves that we see outside on our trees!   

To make the leaves Grace, Jack and Eve colored coffee filters autumn colors of brown, orange, yellow and red with a variety of washable markers.  Next, they sprayed the colored filters with water from a spray bottle.  When wet, the colors on the filter all blend together.  Once the coffee filters dried Grace helped me cut them out into the shape of maple leaves.  We hung the leaves above our kitchen sink where we will enjoy looking at them until Thanksgiving.  After that, we'll have to replace them with some snowflakes!!

Jack spraying the colored coffee filters with water.  This was, by far, Jack's very favorite part of this activity!

Grace spraying the coffee filters with water.  

More spraying by Jack!

 Grace coloring the coffee filters.  Grace worked really hard to color the majority of the filters.

Here are our finished autumn maple leaves.  The picture doesn't quite capture how unique and pretty each leaf is but they look lovely hanging in our kitchen windows.  These leaves will serve as a reminder of just how beautiful early autumn is for soon all of the trees will be bare as the leaves outside fall to the ground in preparation for winter.