With the Kids

Wax Paper Leaf Sun Catchers

My girls love decorating the windows around our house. They are a perfect canvas for all kinds of sun catcher projects. We often make things with clear Contact paper, but this time we made beautiful stained-glass leaves with wax paper and tissue paper. This is a fun and simple project for all ages!

Wax Paper Leaf Sun Catchers

Supplies for Wax Paper Leaf Sun Catchers:

  • wax paper
  • Sharpie
  • tissue paper in fall colors
  • Mod Podge or mix of equal parts white glue and water
  • paint brush or foam brush
  • scissors
  • brown paper for stems

Draw a leaf shape on the wax paper with a Sharpie. For younger kids, you might want to draw the leaf shapes ahead of time. Older kids can freehand leaf shapes. We also printed some leaf silhouettes, then placed them under our waxed paper and traced.

Tracing leaf shapes on wax paper

Working on one section at a time, paint your leaf with glue. Tear pieces of tissue paper and stick them down. This is a pretty simple collage activity – just keep gluing, tearing, and sticking until your leaf is covered! Don’t worry about staying in the lines right now, since these will be cut out later.

Gluing tissue paper to wax paper

When your leaf is covered with tissue paper, add another coat of glue over the top to seal all the pieces. Some of our pieces folded and curled while doing this – it adds to the neat texture of the finished leaf.

Wax and tissue paper leaf

Set aside to dry completely, then cut out your leaves.

Wax paper leaves

Add a paper stem, then hang in your windows to enjoy. We used a few dabs of glue stick to hang our leaf sun catchers. They look beautiful with the sun shining through them!

Wax and tissue paper leaf sun catchers

Pumpkin shapes in yellows and oranges would also make a fun fall window display. Happy fall creating!

Wax paper leaf craft project

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