Over the summer, there were a zillion of those 1,000,001 Fun Things To Do lists floating around. Go to the beach! Build a sand castle! Pick strawberries! Can your own jam! Discover cold fusion! Let the good times roll! But the truth is summer is hot and sweaty and putting sunscreen on two squirmy children is exhausting and I hate getting sand in my lady parts so I’d just be setting myself up for failure. Who wants to look at their Super! Fun! Awesometimes! list on September 1st and realize they only thing you managed to check off is “eat ice cream”?

But fall? Fall I can handle. Fall is easy and breezy and lets you wear stretchy jeans so you can eat apple cider donuts and hot cocoa after a summer of stressing about the size of your thighs in shorts. And instead of a bazillion and one things, let’s stick with a nice reasonable number so there’s still lots of time for naps with the windows open. But I still need a list because checking things off is MY FAVORITE.

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And just in case you might also want to check things off (CHECK!), you can download my list as a PDF and print it out. That’s right, I’ve popped my printable cherry, which is the first step to becoming a full-blown craft blogger. Or maybe that happened like a zillion years ago and I’ve just been in denial.

 Since now that there’s A List Of Things I Must Do, I crossed off “make a fall craft” today with a super cute, super quick leaf lantern project.

After his success in collecting pine cones, I had high hopes that Little Evan would be really into helping me find pretty colored leaves for this project, but unfortunately he thinks ALL the leaves are pretty. He’s like the Jesus of leaf collecting – every one is special and beautiful and precious in his eyes! So I threw all his in the yard (lovingly, of course) and wandered down the street to pick up a few colorful ones.

 You probably already have everything you need for this project (besides the leaves, which are out in your yard)(unless you live somewhere without autumn, in which case this would also work with flowers, ferns or other growing things). Here’s the entire supply list: wax paper, scissors, and iron and some clear tape.

 Tear off a piece of wax paper. Now you have two options – cut it in half or fold it in half. Either way, the idea is to have a wax side facing up. Arrange your leaves on the wax side.

 Then fold/lay the other part of the paper over it wax side down and press lightly with a medium-hot iron.

 If you’re lazy and have messy edges like mine, trim them up once the paper cools off a little. Then bend it into a circle and use a piece of clear tape to make it stay – I found that cutting the tape longer than the lantern and then folding the ends over made it stick really well.

 They don’t look like much now…

 …but with a little candle light, you’ve got fall magic.

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BOOM. Now take a hike. Because it’s on the list, not because I don’t like you.

Tags: crafts, easy, fall, fun, lantern, leaves, printable