Wax-dipped Fall Leaves

As a parent, I understand the importance of fostering a connection between children and nature. Playing outside provides children with an endless toolbox, where sticks become swords, slingshots, or bow and arrows, driftwood becomes a totem pole, a fort, and even a skateboard. Picked flowers become bouquets and decoration for the house.

Indoor crafts such as making seed bombs, bird feeders, nature weaves, and dream catchers allow children to interact with bits and pieces of nature in a more intimate way, with more structure and creativity. These crafts help children to understand the interconnectedness of nature and how it all came to be.

On our hike under the canopies of fall foliage, we collected beautiful color-filled leaves from the ground. When we got home, we flattened them out by pressing them in a big, heavy book. A few days later, when they were ready, we hand dipped our favorite ones in beeswax to keep them for as long as we could, bringing the spirit of the season inside.

Beyond the end result of a craft project, my hope is that my children will always go to nature first, for play, for fun, for answers, for learning, for understanding. To see it as a circular system, a self-sustaining system that evolves and grows. That’s fully alive, every last bit of it. All around us. Even the places we can’t see. The more they learn about it, the more they’ll understand how it all came to be and why it came to be. The interconnectedness. The sameness. The beauty of life, of living. Guiding them towards not only a love for the natural world but a conversation, a reciprocal relationship with it, all by bringing nature back home.

Here’s how to do the simple activity:

Ingredients:

a bunch of colorful fall leaves

beeswax

mini crockpot

Directions:

Completely melt wax in the crock pot. When the wax is fully melted, slowly and carefully begin dipping one leaf at a time. One or two coats should be fine. Make sure to dip the stems too because it will help keep them from breaking off. The more wax you put on the leaves, the less vibrant the color of the leaves will look. Set down the leaf on baking sheet, silicone mat, or the like and let dry. The wax dries very quickly. Continue the process until you have dipped all your leaves. When the leaves are done you can use them in a number of ways like the one pictured above or as a garland.