This week's Craft of the Week features one that welcomes Fall into our homes.  These Fall Placemats are colorful and easy for all kids four years old and older to make.

Make sure to have plenty of newspaper for the painting part of the craft. When choosing leaves it might be fun to pick ones that are different types for a fun fall effect.

What You Need:

• White and black construction paper
• Tempera or acrylic paint
• Paper towels
• Fallen leaves
• Clear contact paper or laminate

What you do:

1. In a sink or a water table, wet one side of a large sheet of white construction paper. Use paintbrushes to drop yellow, green and red tempera paint around on the wet side of the paper.
2. Tip the paper back and forth so that the colors run together, you may want to add a little more water to get an all over effect. Let it dry on some paper towels.
3. Place several collected leaves on the large sheet of black construction paper (do not glue). Trace around the leaves. Remove the leaves. Carefully cut out the leaves. When the color swirled paper is dry, glue the black paper on top of it so that the colors show through the leaf cut out shapes. You can add a decorative edge to the placemat. When done, place clear contact paper over the mat, or laminate.

Fall & Halloween Decoration
Soft Sculpture Pumpkin
excerted from"Crafts for All Seasons"
by Kathy Ross
make a lovely pumpkin from old panty hose
This is a lovely pumpkin craft comes from Kathy Ross' book, "Crafts for all Seasons" that you can make out of old pantyhose and some fiberfill.
You can make it as a nice fall craft or you can modify it for Halloween by adding a face.