AUTUMN TREE LIGHTS - TODDLER CRAFT

This post was sponsored by WaterWipes as part of an Ambassador Program for Influence Central and all opinions expressed in my post are my own.

I received complimentary products to facilitate my review.

I have a love/hate relationship with the fall season.

It’s not completely magical like Christmas, but there’s something different in the air when the crisp breeze, accompanied by the smell of fallen leaves, smoke from the first chimney fires, and the sounds of Patriots football – blows through your neighborhood.Oh, and pumpkin flavored…everything.

But like Lewis Black famously says, “I hate the fall… Oh the leaves change color! They change color for 2 days! Then a big wind comes and all you got are nothing but sticks for the rest of the year. And then the weather is completely nonsense…Nothing you wear is right…put a coat on…but the sun’s out so you’re sweating…take your coat off, but there’s a breeze so your freezing. It’s not weather, it’s malaria!” All true.

But, ultimately I think I really do love the fall. The seasonal decorations are fantastic, and the amount of activities for kids to do are still plentiful. Which is why I decided to go out of my comfort zone and do a really fun craft project with my kids and some of their friends….

My son Rhys loves his room to be illuminated just a tiny bit at night for sleep. That said, to help him ring in the new season, I thought a fun idea would be to create a DIY nightlight with a fall theme. It gets him reaquainted with fall colors, provides a little light for him a night, and helps this momma sleep better because I don’t have to run in his room when he wakes up and cries because it’s “too dark mumma!”

So here is the final product:

If you like the idea, here is what you need:

A mason jar
Mod Podge
Red, green, yellow tissue paper
Brown construction paper
A Paint Brush
A flameless candle

WaterWipes for the clean up

We had a little kid table set up with supplies and had the six children take turns. Three played outside while three did the art project, and vice versa!

Just paint on the Modge Podge in small sections.

Rip up some tissue paper to make it look like leaves, and stick it on the Mod Podge – but work relatively quick because it drys fast.

Here’s when the WaterWipes come in handy because the kid’s little hands got all sticky from the Mod Podge and it made it hard for them to pull their fingers away from the tissue paper without ripping it even more, or pulling it off altogether. So try to wipe their hands after each time they touch the jar.

Then get scraps of the construction paper together and paste it onto the jar to form a tree.

Once that’s done, cover the whole jar, tissue paper, and construction paper with Modge Podge so it mats down any of the loose materials.

Once again, things got messy because of all the sticky stuff – so keep those WaterWipes readily available. Unless you like the texture of Mod Podge throughout your entire house and your clothes 🙂

WaterWipes are great to use because they are durable, and contain only two ingredients, 99.9% pure Irish water and 0.1% grapefruit seed extract. So no extra chemicals, or scents, to worry about that you might find in other baby wipes.