Autumn time is craft time! You can make great decorations for the house and garden from natural materials such as chestnuts. Families with children can, for example, make the next cute chestnut men.
Chestnut men as an autumn decoration: craft idea for children
Children love getting creative with natural materials. Organize a trip to the forest and collect chestnuts, autumn leaves and feathers. Line the work surface with newspaper and scatter the natural materials on it. Let them dry overnight.
The next day you can start crafting. In the article you will find two instructions for chestnut men - with and without drilling. The variant without drilling is suitable for children of daycare age and the alternative with drilling is suitable for children in primary school. However, parents should practice safe handling of the chestnut drill and ideally drill the holes themselves.
Making a chestnut man: instructions
For the cute chestnut men you need the following materials and accessories:
- Chestnuts
- toothpick
- Permanent markers in blue, pink, black and white
- Chestnut borer
- Universal glue
- Watercolors, autumn leaves, feather to decorate
Directions:
1. Drill holes in the bottom third of a larger chestnut tree for the arms. Pierce the center of the chestnut, place a drop of craft glue on each end of the toothpick, and then insert the toothpicks into the chestnut. Drill a hole in the middle of a smaller chestnut and insert toothpicks for the head.
2. Make the arms, legs, head and assemble the chestnut man.
3. Paint faces and decorate the males as desired with feathers and autumn leaves.
You can make various cute animal figures depending on your wishes and the materials available. You can conjure up a bird figure using one chestnut for the head, one for the body and two for the legs, as well as four toothpicks.
For a horse you will need one chestnut with an elongated shape for the head, four smaller chestnuts for the legs, four toothpicks and one large chestnut for the body. You can use natural materials of your choice for the ears.
To make a cute scarecrow you need a cone, two chestnuts and two toothpicks. You can glue the chestnuts and the cones together with the universal glue or with a hot glue.
For the cute elves, pierce holes for the arms and eyes. Put glue on two toothpicks and insert the toothpicks into the holes for the arms. Paint the face and decorate with autumn leaves if desired.
Crafting with chestnuts without drilling
Don't have a chestnut borer? You can make the next chestnut animals with googly eyes, pipe cleaners and hot glue.
- For the squirrel (top left): Two chestnuts, a 5cm piece of brown pipe cleaner for the tail and two 2cm pieces of pipe cleaner for the ears. Googly eyes
- For the sheep (above, right) a large chestnut for the body, four toothpicks for the legs, an acorn for the head, pipe cleaners for the ears and googly eyes.
- For the first snail: 5 chestnuts of the same size, two pieces of pipe cleaner and two googly eyes.
- For the second snail: two chestnuts of the same size for the body, green and brown pipe cleaners and googly eyes.
Directions:
1. Glue the chestnuts together.
2. Fix the pipe cleaners with the hot glue and attach the wiggly eyes.
Crafting with chestnuts is one of the most popular creative activities for small children in autumn. You can find more DIY ideas in our article“Crafts with chestnuts, acorns and other natural materials: 5 cute animals and figures!”find.
