Felt and burlap fall trees

We had our first few days of cold weather last week--cold and RAINY. I don't mind cold at all (I did live in Laramie, Wyoming for 3 years!) but I'm not a fan of rain. Kids can play outside when it's cold and dry, but it's not so fun when it's cold and wet.

At first the rain was nice. We had fun cuddling in front of the fire and reading "On the Banks of Plum Creek" (Tempe and Helena are so into the Little House books right now!), baking cookies, and drinking hot chocolate at every meal. But then my kids started. going. crazy.

So we went up to my room where we keep miscellaneous craft supplies and I pulled this idea out of thin air. Tempe and Helena "helped" me make it and then it kept them occupied for quite a while!

I covered a small painting canvas in burlap by wrapping the burlap tightly over the edges and gluing it on the back. It's a little lumpy, but whatever. Then I cut the shape of a "haunted" tree out of brown felt. It's basically a skinny hand with creepy, long, skinny, knobbly fingers and a tapered wrist. It's pretty gross, but don't worry, you'll cover it with some lovely fall foliage!

You could cut leaf shapes out of felt if you are so inclined, but since hearts are so easy to cut, I just cut a bunch of heart out of yellow and red and a few out of brown. I think this tree with it's heart shaped leaves is sooooo cute!

The felt sticks to the burlap, so kids can position the tree and leaves however they like without them getting scattered. My kids have had so much fun playing with this! I plan on cutting snowflakes out of white felt, flowers out of pink felt (for cherry blossoms), and more hearts out of green so we can play with this tree in every season!