Dementia-Friendly Leaf Print Craft for Seniors

Leaf Print Craft for seniors living with dementia. These easy-to-create leaf print quotes turn out fabulous!  Great for individuals and groups. 

Looking for an easy craft activity for your senior living with dementia? Give leaf prints a try! We used simple quotes as the center giving us an “adult looking” piece of art as the finished product. My mom (mid-stage Alzheimer’s) objects to anything that looks juvenile, and these passed her test. #caregiverwin

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The supplies for this dementia activity are simple. Here’s what you need.

Leaf Print Quote Craft Materials

 

How to make Leaf Print Quotes with your senior living with dementia

STEP 1 – Choose your quote and print it out

Choose a quote … or several. Type the quotes in the word processor of your choice. 

I put rectangles around the ones I created to give a hard stop for the leaf prints and then cut a cover rectangle the same size to put on top of the quote during printing to keep the paint out of the quote area. We stuck the cover rectangle down with a couple of tiny pieces of double-sided tape. (The quotes and cover rectangle we used are available for a limited time in my Resource Library to my subscribers. Not a subscriber yet? Fill out the form at the end of this post to get added!)

STEP 2 – Find some leaves

Choose thick, tough leaves. We initially had thin tree leaves and they were frustrating to use. This is especially true if you decide to use markers for the color. Leaves from shrubs around my house worked best!

Frustrating thin tree leaf-

Shrub leaves that worked well-

STEP 3 – Choose marker or paint colors

You can go crazy here. We chose similar colors in different shades, but I think a rainbow effect would look great, too! We plan on trying that next time.

STEP 4 – Color or paint the leaves and print

We initially tried using markers to color the leaves but found the markers tough to use (even on the tough shrub leaves). The leaves wanted to tear, and Mom had to color really fast to keep the markers from drying before she could make the print. If using markers, I would recommend really fat juicy ones that put out a lot of color quickly. The medium tip markers in the photos did not work well. 

The paint, however, worked great. We used a wide paintbrush, and though it was a little messy, the results were very good. 

Mom printed around the quotes with ease. 

We let it dry for a couple of minutes and then removed the quote cover to reveal her artwork. She was thrilled! 

My Mom, who is currently a pretty solid stage 5 Alzheimer’s, can create these leaf prints with only a little assistance. She even made a few as gifts. 

 

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