Fall Placemats

We actually made these a while ago, but I had so much fun with these and they are so cheap to make!

I had been looking for fun things to do with my toddler to keep us busy and had seen on several blogs the idea to do placemats with pressed leaves. The problem was, they all required contact paper and I don't have any, and don't want to buy any for the sake of saving money and trying to prevent an overabundance of junk. Then, our city sent out a mailer and suggested doing it with wax paper.

They aren't the fanciest looking placemats but it was cheap, super easy and fun. Plus, I don't have to feel terrible when they get destroyed which is just inevitable with a toddler.

We collected leaves and pressed them in our phone book. K loved (!) this. He got to carry around a bucket to collect the leaves in. After the leaves are pressed, have your kids arrange everything on one sheet of wax paper. Cover the leaves with another sheet of wax paper and sandwich your place-mat inside a paper bag to prevent wax from sticking to your iron. Iron your place-mat to melt the wax together around the leaves and you have yourselves a festive, cheap table decoration.

K loves these and has started to understand the concept of M for Mommy, D for Daddy, and K for him.