This fall glue gun art is such a fun way to add a little extra texture to your autumn crafting! Use our printable templates to create simple fall shapes, then add raised glue lines and colourful paint. It’s a great way to make eye-catching and creative artwork that looks impressive without being complicated.
Whether you’re crafting on a cozy afternoon, decorating for the season, or just looking for a creative way to celebrate autumn, this easy fall art project is fun for both kids and adults. Make pumpkins, leaves, apples, and more, then have fun filling each design with your favourite fall colours!
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How to Make Fall Glue Gun Art
Materials:
- Free Printable Pumpkin Template (more templates linked below)
- Watercolor paper
- Pencil
- Watercolor paints
- Water
Equipment:
Instructions:
Step 1: Find what you need
- Gather your supplies and materials.
Step 2: Trace the template
- Print one of our free fall templates. There’s a link to our pumpkin outlines in the materials list above, with more links and details below the tutorial.
- To make your fall glue gun art you’ll want to use watercolour paper. You can fill a whole sheet with smaller pictures or cut a piece to fit 1 outline.
- Next place the template on a well lit window and hold the watercolour paper on top.Trace the shape lightly with a pencil. (You can also use a light board to do your tracing, like you would use for diamond art.)
- Now you’ll want to partially erase the lines you’ve made. Don’t erase them all the way (you still want to see them), but erase them enough so that they’re very light.
Step 3: Make glue outline
- Use a hot glue gun to trace over the lines of the template with hot glue.For the smoothest lines, keep the glue gun going for as long as possible, moving it constantly to follow the shape of the picture.
- Optional: Use a dry paintbrush to remove the glue strings.
Step 4: Paint inside the lines
- To add colour to your picture, use watercolour paint. You can use a palette like this, or liquid watercolours.
- Begin adding paint to the first section of your paper. The raised glue lines make it easy to keep paint contained to one area.
- Dip your brush in water and add drops to the page to spread the paint and create a lighter shade.
- Continue to fill in your fall shape. Use the tip of the paintbrush to get right up against the glue lines.
- You can also add a different shade or complementary colour of paint to create shading or blending.
- Continue to add paint, filling in all parts of the picture. We used a couple different shades to get a brown stem and then used green paint on the vines.
- Your fall glue gun art is complete!
Helpful Tips:
- Move the paper if it feels easier: You may find it easier to hold and turn the paper as you trace the template instead of moving the glue gun in every direction. Do whatever feels most natural and gives you the smoothest, most even glue lines.
- Clean up paint with a wet Q-tip: If watercolour paint gets on the raised glue lines, use a damp Q-tip to gently wipe it away.
- Play around with the colours: Add extra water to the paper or your paint to create lighter shades, or blend different colours together for a pretty watercolour effect. Each piece of fall glue gun art can look completely different depending on how you mix and blend the colours.
Get free printable templates to make fall glue gun art:
We used our apple outline, sunflower outline, pumpkin template, and leaf template posts to make our fall glue gun art.
Each post includes several different shapes and designs, with multiple sizes to choose from. If the template you like is still too large or too small, you can also adjust the scale in your printer settings before printing.
What type of paint is best for making glue gun art?
A regular watercolour paint palette or liquid watercolour paints will both work really well for this project.
If you only have acrylic paint, you can thin it with water and use that instead. The finished artwork won’t have quite the same translucent watercolour look, but will still turn out nicely.
And if you’d rather skip the mess of paint altogether, you can even use coloured pencils, markers, or crayons to colour inside the raised glue outlines.
What type of paper should I use for making glue gun art?
Watercolour paper is the best choice because it’s designed to absorb plenty of water without falling apart. Mixed media paper is another great option.
Cardstock will also work if that’s what you have on hand, although the paint won’t absorb quite as nicely and the paper will wrinkle a bit as it dries. We don’t recommend regular printer paper for this project because it’s too thin for the amount of water used and will wrinkle badly or even tear.
What type of glue gun should I use for this fall art project?
We normally love using a dual-temperature glue gun on the low setting, because it gets the job done with less risk of burns. For this particular craft, though, we recommend using the high-temperature setting.
Hotter glue flows more smoothly from the glue gun, making it much easier to trace the template and create clean, continuous raised lines. As always, an adult should handle the hot glue gun or closely supervise children using it.
This fall glue gun art is such a fun way to get creative with simple autumn shapes! The raised glue lines add a cool textured effect, and the watercolour paint makes every pumpkin, leaf, apple, and sunflower look unique.
It’s an easy fall art project for kids and adults, and the finished pieces make such pretty seasonal decorations. Have fun experimenting with different colours, templates, and designs to create your own fall artwork!
Here’s even more fall art project ideas:
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72 cute and fun crafts that kids and parents alike can enjoy. All with as little mess as possible!
Where to buy:
You can purchase Low-Mess Crafts for Kids from Amazon, or wherever books are sold:
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