I am so excited to be a part of the Porch and I hope you will enjoy the ideas I bring.  I have heard some homeschool moms say they are not good at crafting, and while they have children who love to craft, they just can’t seem to make it a part of their day.  My hope through Craft Corner is to encourage you in your crafting adventures, to give you ideas that are simple and fun.  Some will be geared towards kids and others will be fun things you can do for yourself.  I will also be posting some great gifts ideas to make for Christmas.  I will include photos when possible, links to outside websites and hopefully links to some bloggers who have shared some ideas of their own.  Fall is here and it is wonderful. We love the smells outside, the changing of colors and the change in temperature.  One of our favorite things to do is collect leaves. An easy preschool activity is leaf rubbings.  Place leaf under a piece of paper and take a crayon without paper and rub the side of the crayon over the leaf.  The textures show up.  Use different color crayons. When you are finished cut them out and glue onto another piece of paper to make a collage. Or if you have picked a variety you can glue them into a lapbook and label them for a more educational project. Another leaf activity is to collect a variety of leaves in shapes and sizes.  Using a large placemat size of construction paper place leaves around the paper to make a collage.  With each leaf using a paintbrush and some paint in fall colors, paint the underside of the leaf.  Be careful not to use too much paint. Press the leaf onto the paper where you had it placed.  When your design is finished take it to a print shop and have it laminated.  It then becomes a great fall placemat for the dinner table.  We also took a small photo of each child and put it in the middle of the placemat. The child dated and signed it. This next project came from my daughter Pixie (blog name) who is 7 and a half.  She came up with this on her own and the only thing I did was say, yes you can go outside and collect a few things.  This is a perfect craft for the young and very young.  She collected leaves, sticks and grass.  On a piece of construction paper she glued the items so that it made a picture of what she would see outside.  She glued the grass on the bottom, the sticks she broke up and formed a tree and then added the leaves she collected.  Finally, I leave you with a link to Rebeca. She has a great idea on how to dip leaves in wax to preserve them for the season, and if that does not entice you, surely the pumpkin scone recipe will.  Enjoy! Susan Susan Dusseault is in her 5th year of homeschooling her three daughters.  She and her husband have been married for 11 years and reside in the  Pacific Northwest.  Susan loves all things crafty and is passing this love along to her daughters.  Visit her blog Ladies in Training. Related Tags: crafts, leaves, fall, placemat, collage, crayon rubbings