October 1: Fall Place Mat

The boys started collecting leaves every time we went outside, so I figured it was time to make an autumn placemat.  One idea I'd read online used clear contact paper to make the placemat, but I didn't have any of that at home, and I remembered making mats with waxed paper, so that's what we went with. 

Tysen carefully placed each chosen leaf on the waxed paper which I had laid on top of a towel (thinking ahead for using an iron!)  Prior to inviting Ty to make his new mat, I shaved some broken crayons so he could add some extra color to his mat.  He had fun spreading the crayon shavings around, although he wanted to cover the leaves with the shavings rather than put the color in the "blank" spaces.  Once he was finished designing his new mat, I placed the second piece of waxed paper over top, covered it with a towel and began ironing. 

Now, one thing that never even crossed my mind was that my towels were textured.  Using textured towels to help protect the waxed paper ended up texturing the waxed paper, so we ended up with a textured placemat.  A mistake that turned out to be kind of a cool feature! The crayon shavings didn't melt and spread as well because of the texture keeping it more in place, but it still turned out nicely.  Ty was happy with it!  We trimmed the edges to make it look nice and that was that. 



Ta-da!