Hedgehog Craft with Fall Leaves

I finally did a craft with my daughter, Elise. It was so fun! She's 19 months and although I've done plenty of hand and footprint art with her and she's done many crafts at day care, this is the first one we've done together. Mama and baby hedgehogs:

Cute, right? A teacher at my center made these with her 3-year-olds. I loved them but didn't want to have my class copy them, so I decided to make them at home with Elise. One beautiful evening we went for a walk and collected leaves. Then it was time to get crafting. Elise was very excited and couldn't wait to start painting.

We used paper plates, but regular paper would work just fine. I started with half a plate and cut out a hedgehog shape. I did the same thing with a small paper plate for Elise. Then I mixed red and yellow paint to make orange and we began to paint our plates.

When we were done, I put glue on the plates so we could attach our leaves.

Then we added wiggle eyes.

Elise got a little carried away with the eyes, but that's okay! And finally, we added a small pom pom for the nose.

We both had a blast and since that night she keeps pointing to the smock because she wants to do more art! Ahhh, that's my girl.

Fun Fact: Hedgehogs got their name because they prefer to live and eat in and near garden hedges, and they grunt like a pig when they hunt.