Fall Window Mandalas

Over the summer, I read about a great project over on The Artful Parent. She took the beautiful bounty of her garden and brought it indoors by creating ‘stained glass” flower mandalas. Such wonderful simplicity. I really wanted to do this when our garden was at its peak, but alas, the summer slipped away and we were gone for most of it. Then it hit me on one of our walks the other day, why not create the mandalas using what is in the garden now, an autumn mandala. So off we went to collect what is growing in our neck of the woods. We came home with pockets full of golden rod, asters, beautiful fall leaves, and even some green partially dried hydrangeas that were never cut, oops. We spread them out on the table, collected our contact paper and went to work.

This project was so easy even the little guy had fun creating them. One thing I noticed was the textures were different than they would have been in the summer. The plants we were dealing with weren’t fresh and vibrant, they were crunchy and slightly dried. The boys had fun ripping and slightly crushing the hydrangea leaves as well as taking great care with the delicate fall leaves. I think it would be fun to do this every season and see what we could come up with.
The result is absolutely beautiful. We placed ours on the door that leads into our screened in porch and every morning as the sun streams in behind them, they make me happy. I just wish the kitchen wasn’t so dark so I could get a better picture.