Autumn Trees

"Just as a painter needs light in order to put the finishing touches to his picture, so I need an inner light, which I feel I never have enough of in the autumn."                                                      -- Leo Tolstoy

So this will probably be the last post for a little while.  This is the last of my Thanksgiving tries and life will be back to normal when I go back to work tonight.  You've seen my Thanksgiving food inspirations.  Now you get to see an activity that I did with my adorable nieces.  

I have a bunch of kids' crafts pinned so that I have something to do with them.  And one of my favorites was this Autumn Painted Tree by La classa della maistra Valentina.  (Disclaimer:  The blogspot is in Spanish, but the pictures make it very clear how to make these.)

Now my nieces are 5 and 6 years old, so this seemed like it was going to be the perfect type of craft for them.  But even W and B joined them in this activity.  I found the little canvases on sale at Michael's, then I painted a tree trunk for them.  I then traced a light circle so they would have an idea of where to paint.  They went to town with the Q-Tips dipped in paint and did all the rest themselves.  They did a great job until W told them they should make leaf piles under the trees so suddenly we had leaves all over the place.  But I'm very proud of them, and think they did a great job!

From my board "Every child is an artist."