We are always looking for unique ways to fancy up the house for the changing seasons and decided that we needed to start decorating for fall. We decided that we wanted to change an existing picture frame that we had decorated for summer but we weren't quite sure what we wanted to make. We took off on our walk with the picture frame in hand and looked to the outdoors for a little inspiration.
We began looking around and the leaves have not really begun to change here yet but there are plenty of crunchy leaves on the sidewalks to kick around. While we were kicking around in the leaves we found our inspiration. There were tons of small branches that had fallen out of the trees and they were just screaming for a new home. We started digging through the leaves looking for a perfect branch to make a tree of our own to hang on our wall.
With the picture frame in hand we began looking for that perfect branch. It needed to fit in the frame (with the glass removed) and needed to have a flat surface on one side so we could somehow get it to glue onto a piece of paper. After we looked around for a while we found the perfect branch for our project. We did need to head home to do a little cutting on the branch so that it would fit in the frame. That is where the real fun began.
DIY At Home 3D Tree Art for The First Day of Fall
What you will need
- 8×10 piece of yellow card stock
- 8×10 piece of orange card stock
- computer and printer (we used these to make the word autumn at the top of our picture but if you don't have one available you could just write the words at the top with black or brown marker)
- 1 small branch from a tree (we found one on the ground that was perfect because we didn't really want to cut off of a live tree)
- clear school glue
- something heavy to sit on the branch while the glue dried it to the paper (we used a small glass bowl)
- yellow, orange and red tissue paper
- an old picture frame with no glass
- small glass bowl to hold the glue
DIY At Home 3D Tree Art Instructions
First we needed to cut a little off the branch so that it would fit into the frame. We used our really strong kitchen sheers which cut through the dead branch really well. Once we had it all ready to go we took the clear school glue and glued the branch to the yellow card stock. We used quite a bit of glue and then stuck a heavy glass bowl on top and let it set overnight so we were sure it was all the way dry.
While the glue was drying I took the orange sheet of card stock and used my paint program on my computer to print off the words autumn onto it. I did print it on regular white paper first to make sure it looked like I wanted and fit on the sheet first. Once that was done we cut a strip out of the paper. Once the tree was done drying we were able to assemble the strip of orange across the top of the yellow sheet just above the tree and we glued it on real well also.
Then it was time to rip the tissue paper and scrunch them up to look like leaves so that we could glue them on. We found it was easier if we had the glue sitting in a glass bowl and we dipped the leaves into the glue and placed them on the tree. We decided that we should also have some at the bottom of the paper since the leaves would be falling to the ground soon. We set our project up high and out of the way so it could again dry overnight.
After it was dry it was time to put it in a frame. You can find frames fairly cheep at your local dollar store or even at a rummage sale. There are tons of times that I have used frames with no glass in them for projects just like this so I always keep extras on hand. We did have to cut some off the edges so it would fit inside the frame. You might want to keep that in mind while completing the project.
We had a wonderful time completing this project and the end result looks spectacular!! The look on my children's faces when they saw it on the wall was absolutely priceless!!
What's your favorite fall project?
