Dress up your holiday table with these nature-inspired placemats, made with colorful leaves that you and your child can collect together.
Leaves
Crayons
Kitchen mallet (or building block)
Zip-close plastic bag
Plain paper
Wax paper
Newspaper
Iron
Ironing board
Step 1
Go for a walk with your child and collect pretty leaves. (Blades of grass will work, too.)
Step 2
Help your child peel the wrappers from broken crayons and save the wrappers. Place the crayons in a zip-close plastic bag and help your child crush the crayons using a kitchen mallet or a building block. Scoop out a teaspoon or less of crayon bits onto a sheet of plain paper.
Step 3
Cut out two sheets of wax paper to the size you want for the placemat. Working on a newspaper-covered surface, your child can arrange the leaves, grass, crayon wrappers, and crayon bits on the shiny side of one of the pieces.
Step 4
Place a few pieces of plain paper on your ironing board to protect it from newsprint. Carefully move the decorated wax paper, along with the newspaper below it, to your ironing board. Place the second piece of wax paper, shiny side down, on top of the first decorated piece. Place a sheet of newspaper on top of this, and then put a sheet of plain white paper on top (to keep you iron free of newsprint).
Step 5
Using a warm iron, gently iron the plain white paper for two to three minutes. (Parents will want to do this part.) The heat from the iron will melt the crayons and the wax paper will laminate itself together.
