Our Bostik Bloggers Box of crafty bits arrived this month and as soon as I found out that the theme was Bonfire Night, I knew exactly what I wanted to do – an Autumn Bonfire Collage using the beautiful changing leaves around us.

Every time we go for a walk (daily as we have a Labrador) Bear collects handfuls of leaves that catch his eye. We came across some beautiful bright red leaves and collected lots to bring home. Bear wanted to paint them as we have done in the past but the natural colours are so beautiful and don’t need any help to shine through and give the impression of a roaring bonfire.

 

 

The collage is so easy to make and quite mess free as long as you don’t mind a bit of glue. It’s perfect for a toddler to do with help or for a child such as my son at almost 5 years old, to manage largely independantly. If you want to make a similar picture, you will need:

 

 

• Bostik White Glu
• Bostik Glue Pens
• Bostik Glu Dots
• Brush & Container
• Black Card 
• Brown Card
• Scissors
• Red / Orange dried leaves
• Sparkles to embellish

 

First I cut a good handful of ‘branches’ out of the brown card, mixed a good blob of Bostik White Glu with some red and gold glitter glue in a pot and as I didn’t have a large piece of black card and so I stuck 4 A4 pieces together with some tape to make a large background for our picture.

I hardly need to tell you how to make this collage – basically, I drew an outline of an area that the base of the bonfire would be best to be within, in glue and asked Bear to spread the glue all over that area. I had already explained that we were going to make a fire, like the ones we have visited in the past and we had looked at some pictures for reference and so then asked him to place the ‘branches’ on in a pile on the glue.

 

 

Then, I knew that the leaves may not have stuck down so well with just the glu and so I helped out by applying some Bostik Glu dots to the back of the leaves. This can be a bit tricky for little fingers and also with the leaves being a little brittle and so this may be a bit for adults to do, no matter the age of the children.

 

 

We talked about the bright reds and oranges and how the leaves looked like the fire and then I asked Bear to put them on top of the branches to make it look like they were on fire. The glu dots really help to take the frustration away from art activities as we’ve all been there when something hasn’t stuck in place and taken ages to do dry.

When he had placed the leaves where he wanted, I then suggested that he paint them with the glitter glue so that they ‘lit up’, sparkled and ‘moved’ like real fire and he did this with gusto! 

 

 

Finally, we had some lovely silver stars which Bear decided to put into the night sky of the picture.

The end result is really effective and Bear is so proud of it. It’s hung proudly on our door and is helping with the autumn decoration of out house.

I hope you like our craft and maybe do similar yourself.

 

Our finished Autumn Bonfire Collage

 

Love

 

 

 

 

 

*Disclosure: Bostik kindly sent the box of crafty bits in order for us to design our own activity