This twig and tissue paper fall tree craft has preschoolers making and decorating their very own fall trees. This easy nature craft uses real twigs for tree trunks and squares of fall-coloured tissue paper for leaves. Kids will explore texture and colours, and get some fine-motor development in as well.
We are so fortunate to live in a country where the leaves on our trees turn to vibrant shades of gold and crimson every fall. Because we do, the hooligans and I make a lot of colourful fall leaf crafts and fall tree crafts here in my daycare at this time of year.
These twig and tissue paper trees are easy for toddlers and preschoolers to make and they won’t cost you a thing to make when you use twigs found in the yard and tissue paper saved from past birthdays and celebrations.
Tissue paper is one of the best materials for kids crafts! Check out our tissue paper apple trees, hand and tissue paper trees, and our colourful fall wreaths to see what I mean!
The vibrant tissue paper and the twigs in today’s fall tree craft allows kids to explore the colours and textures of the Autumn.
Before you make your craft, you can head out to the yard to search for your sticks, and to observe the colours of the leaves on the trees. Have the children name all the colours they see in the leaves so they can help select the colours of tissue paper for your craft.
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Supplies for twig and tissue paper fall tree craft:
- Fall coloured Tissue Paper
(cut into 2.5 inch squares) - School Glue (I poured ours into small bowls)
- paintbrushes
- styrofoam (saved from packages and purchases)
(cut into 2.5 inch squares)
(I poured ours into small bowls)
The preschoolers had decided that red, green, orange and yellow should be the colours that we used to make the leaves for our trees. The toddler wanted to include blue as well.
I cut the tissue paper into 3 inch squares. No need to make them leaf-shaped because they’re going to be scrunched and crumpled for this craft. .
I placed the tissue paper “leaves” in a plastic bowl so the kids could just reach in and grab whatever colour they wanted. Keeping them in the bowl also prevented our tissue paper leaves from blowing away.
Make a base for your trees:
So the twigs would stand up while we worked on them, I pushed them into a sheet of styrofoam. This isn’t necessary though; you could stand your twigs up in a jar, or leave them laying on the table.
Attaching your tissue paper leaves:
I poured some white glue into a shallow bowl, and then the kids used paint brushes to brush the glue all over their twigs.
Then they crumpled the squares of tissue paper and stuck them to the branches of their trees.
While their trees dried, I had each of the kids make a small base for their tree.
I cut some small squares from our styrofoam sheet and the kids painted those with brown paint.
If you’re wondering about our denim craft aprons in the picture below, I make those from the legs of our old jeans. You can see the easy how-to here.
Then we stuck the trees into the bases so they could stand up on their own.
The kids were so proud of their efforts!
You can see why! Don’t these little trees look lovely? The tissue paper leaves look so vibrant in the sunlight.
Ways to display your twig and tissue paper fall trees:
These colourful twig and tissue paper trees will add a splash of colour to any table in your home.
You could display them in a vase, or in a jar filled with small stones.
You could even fill a small flower pot with soil and display them that way.
This twig and tissue paper fall leaf craft is a truly wonderful craft for toddlers and preschoolers to make to celebrate fall and all the colours of the season.
More fall crafts for preschoolers:
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Jackie is a mom, wife, home daycare provider, and the creative spirit behind Happy Hooligans. She specializes in kids’ crafts and activities, easy recipes, and parenting. She began blogging in 2011, and today, Happy Hooligans inspires more than 2 million parents, caregivers and Early Years Professionals all over the globe.
Jolene
oh so beautiful, cannot wait for the weekend , we will go twig collecting!
Carol
The smile on her face says it all!!!
Eva
The colours are beautiful and I agree, they’d make a lovely decoration in the home.
BaptismalGownsPlus
I look forward to making these ‘trees’ with my niece – so cute!
Meg F
I think we are going to try these! They look like fun!
Stopping by from the Thoughtful Spot Hope.
Janis Cox
What a great idea. Following you from Create it Saturday.
Blessings
Janis Author of Tadeo Turtle
Bethany Winston
Those are really beautiful. What a great idea!
Philippa
Love this idea, we might try a spring version as that is the season that has just started here 🙂
Lauren
Oooh, I love this idea! My daughter will have a blast with this!! Thank you for sharing at our Pinning for Play link party!
Jessica
Im a homeschool mama and Im thrilled I found your blog. Sometimed I run out of ideas for my young kiddos. Thank you!! Cant wait to hear more!
Jessica
happyhooligans
So glad you found us, Jessica, and so happy you’ll be following us for ideas to do at your house! Welcome!
Otilia (@romanianmum)
i think this could be the sort of craft i could do easily…i am not good at crafting normally 🙁
Otilia (@romanianmum)
forgot to say…thank you for linking to the Parenting Pin It party.
trying to pin but i am having problems. can you please check if you have any problems? @romanianmum
happyhooligans
I think it must have been a Pinterest glitch, Otilla. I tried, and like you, couldn’t pin ANYTHING from my site. An hour later, it’s not a problem. Pinterest has been super-glitchy for a ton of people lately.
Jessica Yeo
It’s Springtime here in Australia and the cherry blossoms are in full bloom. This will be a fabulous craft using pink and white! Thanks for the inspiration!
happyhooligans
Oooo, they’d be beautiful in pink and white, Jessica!
Jill
We live rural so we have a lot of sticks at our disposal, so I think I might try this for one of my craft days. Thank you for linking up this week to the Thoughtful Spot Weekly Blog Hop 🙂
Mary Catherine
Love it!!! 🙂 Another fun idea from the head of the Hooligans — hope to try this out with my kiddos. Thanks for linking up at Share It Saturday. I’m featuring you this week. 🙂
Dani @ lifeovereasy
Sooo pretty – I love these!
Walker Summers
I forgot how easy and fun it is to roll up little balls of tissue paper and glue them onto a piece of paper. I let the kids go outside and find some leaves to trace. I cut out some squares of tissue paper and gave the kids some glue in a dish so that they could dip and stick the tissue onto the paper. I think this craft would work just as well with gluestick and would be easier that way for the little ones.
Lauren
Hi Jackie, I just wanted to pop back in and let you know that I’ve featured you at this week’s Pinning for Play link party! I hope you come back to link up with us again.
happyhooligans
Thanks so much Lauren! I’m heading over right now!
Debs
I love simple yet lovely ideas like this. Thanks for linking this post up to Tuesday Tots. I’m featuring it this week in a tree activities round up on Learn with Play at home. 🙂
happyhooligans
Thanks so much, Debs! I’m so glad you liked it!
Darren
Nice Tissue Twig Tree Craft! I’ll teach this to my kids to improve their skills!
Christina @ The DIY Mommy
These are really cute & my daughters would love to make them! Anything involving a lot of glue is always a big hit in our house. Thanks for sharing!
Cassi
You can just see the pride on their faces! I’ll be featuring this on The Crafty Crow soon!
happyhooligans
Yay!! So glad you liked it Cassi! Thank you for choosing to share it with your followers!