Today, as UT football season starts, all of the greater Knoxville area celebrates the unofficial first day of fall. When it’s football time in Tennessee, it’s also autumn – at least to all of us in the 865.
So, in honor of this season, I spent some time with my youngest doing a pumpkin craft while the game played in the family room. (It can’t be bad luck to do an orange craft while Big Orange plays, right?)
My middle son is recovering from an ENT surgery this week, my eldest is on visitation at his biological father’s place, and my youngest woke with extra energy following an afternoon nap. He’s really good at letting us paint his hands at Parents Day Out, so I thought he might enjoy making some artwork together.
Side note: I don’t think I’ve mentioned it here on the blog, I am now Director of Parents Day Out (PDO) at the church where I am also the Christian Education Director.
The first thing I did was paint his hand, then make an orange handprint on a piece of paper. As that dried, I wiped his hand clean, and then I painted his thumb pad. On a different piece of paper, I made several thumb prints.
While I turned the thumbprints and handprint into fall pumpkins, Franklin used a paintbrush with leftover paint on a piece of spare paper to make… “abstract art.” (Hey, he had fun and practiced his hand-eye coordination skills.)
I used brown, orange, and green Crayola markers to turn the paint prints into pumpkins.
For the hand print, I turned it sideways, did a rough orange trace around it, added a brown stem, and then added some green vine. Voilà, a pumpkin! I also added Franklin’s name and the year.
For the thumb prints, I used a brown marker to make stems and a green one to draw vines connecting the pumpkins by the stem to turn it into a 3-row pumpkin patch. I added a title and date. And again: Voilà, a fall pumpkin patch!
These were really fun and my littlest kiddo looked proud when I showed him his finished projects!
Just wanted to share in case you’re looking for a fun fall craft for your little ones – to decorate your refrigerator door or send artwork to out of town grandparents.
Kate with a Twang 