An eco-friendly autumn craft begins in your recycling bin!
With some imagination and some cozy crafting, you can accomplish all your seasonal decorating via materials that would otherwise be tossed away. From book page garlands to pumpkins made from sweaters, here are my favorite upcycled autumn crafts!
Book Page Leaf Bunting
Y’all know by now that I LOVE my book page projects! I especially love this book page autumn leaf bunting, because the autumn leaf prints are so delightfully process-oriented. If you don’t yet know about gelli printing, this is the perfect time for it! You can also get a lot of different looks simply by changing the shape of the bunting flags.
Book Page Leaves
This upcycled boo page project is one of my special favorites for autumn. You can turn these leaves into garlands or wreaths, leaving them black and white or painting them with watercolors. Put the watercolor brush in the hands of a kid, and it’s a perfect kid-craft that really works as decor!
Fabric Trees
The tutorial uses scraps of tartan, but imagine if you upcycled old flannel shirts for these! Plaid flannel in green/brown colorways would look great, and would stay seasonally appropriate even if you left them up through winter. With different templates, you could also make deciduous trees using flannels in orange or red colorways. Pair them with some fall leaf confetti cut from the same flannel for the perfect tablescape!
Flannel Coasters
If you’ve got scraps leftover after you make the beautiful upcycled flannel shirt trees, above, why not also sew some matching coasters? You could even use the same blanket stitch or running stitch for both projects. If you use winter colors for the back side of each coaster, you could just flip them over and use them through the whole holiday season.
No-Sew Fabric Pumpkins
I LOVE the look of these denim pumpkins, and I love that they’re made from the seams, which are otherwise so challenging to upcycle. I don’t love that the tutorial calls for a plastic pumpkin as a base, but finding a plastic pumpkin to upcycle isn’t impossible, especially if your community has an active Freecycle or Buy Nothing group.
Sock Pumpkin
Orphaned socks now have a VERY important autumn job to do! If you’ve got a whole family’s worth of orphaned socks, you can even make these pumpkins in different sizes.
Sweater-Wrapped Candles
I really love a jarred scented candle, but it’s often pretty clear when the color/label are out of season. For an easy fix, at least for cozy season, you just have to wrap that candle in a sweater!
Tin Can Lanterns
I love celebrating the longer nights of autumn when the darkness is a fun novelty that I’m not yet sick of (I’m looking at YOU, February!). For a variety of sizes, check out your local recycling center or hit up a bulk store for a big can of something that you know you’ll use up. The time that my Girl Scout troop wanted to learn how to make tin can stoves, I ended up decanting MANY giant cans of peaches into quart Mason jars in my freezer. We ate sooooo many canned peaches that year!
Twine Pumpkin
Here’s a chance to put an old paper towel or toilet paper tube to use. The tutorial calls for twine, but you could also substitute ribbon, bias tape, or anything else with some structure to it.
Upcycled Easter Egg Acorns
These acorns are so well-painted that I would have had no idea they’re actually Easter eggs! You could also substitute old wooden, Styrofoam, or papier mache Easter eggs–basically any Easter egg that you no longer want to use for Easter!
Upcycled Wooden Sign
The author of this tutorial upcycles an antique wooden ironing board, but you can use any wood that you want to repurpose. I still make half my wooden items from old pallets, lol. It hasn’t been trendy in a decade, but it still works great!
Woolen Blanket Bunting
Wool always looks so cozy in the autumn, and it’s even better when it’s in autumn colors. I love this bunting made from upcycled wool blankets, complete with appliqued embellishments. If you felt the wool first, it’s fine for a seasonal run outdoors, but it would look just as cozy inside!
P.S. Prefer nature crafts? Here are my 15 favorite autumn crafts to make with natural materials!
