Erin Fox
Great ideas for getting creative with nature
Make your own foliage friends out of your woodland foraging treasures. The animals shown here can be used as a guide for your own original creations. You don’t have to make the animals exactly the way they look here; experiment with large leaves, cutting and trimming them to make any kind of animal you want.
Collect leaves of different, shape, size and colour and start making your woodland animals.
For the fox’s body and its tail, you will need two long, thin red leaves. For the legs you can use four stems cut from the leaves. For the head and ears use a smallish leaf wider but shorter than the leaves used for the body and tail, and two snippets of leaf ends.
For the deer, small oak leaves work brilliantly for the antlers. Use a beech leaf for the head, wide end facing up and narrow end facing down. Use a large fat leaf for the body and thin leaves for the legs.
For the owl, take a large leaf and snip a v-shape out of the middle at the widest end. Use two small leaves for the wings. Cut out small circles from other leaves for the eyes and use small twigs or leaf stems for the owl’s feet. Place a long twig underneath the stem feet so the leaf owl appears to be perched on a branch.
For a hedgehog, grab a handful of leaves, layer them together and fan out for the hedgehog’s spikes. Take a smaller leaf and place it an angle for the hedgehog’s snout.
For the eyes of each animal, you can dot these on using a felt tip pen or black pencil; or you can cut and shape the animals eyes using leaves. Stick everything down on a large piece of paper or you can stick each animal onto individual cards and gift tags.
More ideas…
For a little dormouse, use one large leaf with stem still attached, and two tiny leaves for the ears.
Arrange the leaves to create butterflies, dragonflies, and other winged insects. Arrange small twigs to make your own stick insect. Line up leaves all of the same shape and size to form a long snake or caterpillar.
If the leaves are a little damp when you’ve collected them, leave them to dry out overnight. Press between newspaper and weigh down with heavy books.
