Be sure to check out this great tutorial on how to preserve fall leaves from Gingerbread Snowflakes! This simple technique can make most of these projects last for years rather than weeks.

Check out more fall crafts with these fall paper crafts, acorn crafts, and owl crafts over at Animal Jr.!

Fall Acorns

After a few days my bowl started overflowing, and I started coming up with ideas for acorn crafts. They really are little beauties, and they simply scream to be transformed into cute little acorn people!

Acorn Crafts

How to Make Acorn Craft People

Making Acorn Crafts

All you need to make these acorn people is paint, something wooden for the body, a hot glue gun and a little imagination.

The wooden ball and spool I got at Hobby Lobby for super-cheap in the wood crafts section. I chose some beautiful fall colors and got out my tiniest paint brush to dab on the eyes and nose. This was a little tricky, mostly because it’s been forever since I’ve painted and my hands aren’t used to having to be so precise! But you can just wipe off the mistakes, if you make any, to get the faces just right.

Paint the body next, and you can make it up as you go along. I found that the more detailed I could be, the cuter they turned out. I even debated putting tiny Swarovski crystals onto the coat buttons, but that would have required another trip to the store.

Once the paint is dry just dab a tiny amount of glue onto the bottom of the acorn and pop it on top of the body. Hold it for a bit to make extra sure it’s at the angle you want.

I’m saving the rest of my acorns for some Christmas crafts, I just hope they last! They seem to like to split and fall apart after a while. Pffft.

For more fall crafts, check out these autumn paper snowflakes, fall pomanders, or these cute and easy Halloween finger puppets.

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Lara’s Wood Spool 7/8″”x 1 1/8″” 3 pc
Price: $1.04
Lara’s Wood pieces are unfinished, solid wood. They are great for painting and staining, and you can make endless projects by using several different individual parts to make unique and fun new creations! Warning: These are not toys. Not intended for children under the age of 8. Spool 7/8″”x 1 1/8″” 3 pc

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Lara’s Wood Half Ball 1″” 4 pc
Price: $1.04
Lara’s Wood pieces are unfinished, solid wood. They are great for painting and staining, and you can make endless projects by using several different individual parts to make unique and fun new creations! Warning: These are not toys. Not intended for children under the age of 8. Half Ball 1″” 4 pc

Admittedly I’m more interested in garden crafts than I am with gardening… but I might plant something this year just so I can use these plant markers! I have to say I think this is one of my favorite projects I’ve ever come up with!

I sat today and tried to think of every vegetable that I might possibly plant in my garden, and drew them up for this craft pattern download. I believe I only scratched the surface of what vegetables are actually out there though:

Tomatoes, carrots, pumpkins, broccoli, potatoes, corn, lettuce, peas, onions, orange peppers, green peppers, cucumbers, beets (or radishes, I suppose), watermelon, beans, red peppers, yellow peppers and squash.

Download the printable plant marker artwork

So suffice it to say that if you see some fruits or vegetables that I’ve missed, please leave them in a comment and I’ll create a plant markers garden craft “version 2.0″ in the next few days.

What you Need to Make these Plant Markers Garden Craft

Plant Markers Materials

• Download and print the fruit and vegetable illustrations on a color printer
  (You will need Adobe Acrobat Reader)
• Sticks from your yard, cut to about 6″ – 8″ inches tall
• Raffia
• Rubber cement or glass glue
• Small clear glass aquarium pebbles, the approximately 3/4 inch size. As tempting as it is, avoid the larger glass pebbles that are over an inch in diameter. They seem like they will work, but the way they are made, they always have wrinkles in the glass on the flat part, which makes it very hard to see the pictures beneath the glass

How to Make these Plant Markers Garden Craft

Glue the paper between the glass pebbles

Carefully cut out the circles of the plant markers you plan on using. I used a 3/4″ hole punch at first, but it was a little too big and I had to trim them down.

When I made these recently I used rubber cement, but in the past I have used this awesome glass glue called Eclectic Adhesive E6000 that I think actually worked better. It’s thicker and left less bubbles between the paper and the glass, and is totally weather proof. Glue the paper veggie circles between two glass pebbles and let dry.

Attach the glued pebbles to the top of the sticks

If you’re using that E6000 glue, you can use it for this next step, too. Otherwise grab a hot glue gun, and attach the two glued together pebbles to the top of the stick. If you’re really picky about what works best, I would use the E6000 for the first step and the glue gun for this step and the next one.

Wrap the raffia around the base

After the glue is dry/cooled off, wrap a 6″ – 8″ inch piece of raffia over the glued area to cover it up. Wrap it in a few layers so that the top layers hold the starting end in place. Then grab that glue gun again and put a dab of it on the back side of the raffia to secure the finishing end in place. This may sound tricky or hard, but it isn’t. It’s super-easy. Trim the ends of the raffia that are still sticking out.

Waterproof the crevice between the pebbles

Now you’re almost done, but you still have paper in between two pebbles that could possibly get wet when it rains. So you need to put a thin layer of glue in the crevice between the two pebbles to seal out the water. You can do this with the rubber cement brush (or more easily with a smaller pain brush), or use your fingers to spread the E6000 glue. It’s ok if it turns out just a little sloppy, because it’s really hard to see anyway.

Now comes the hard part – you can’t use them until you plant your garden!