Thursday 23 September 2010

Leaves Leaves Leaves!









Oh my goodness, so incredibly frustrated.  I had a whole post done up, ready to go, and then I some how deleted it all, and now have to start all over again.  

Well, what's an autumn party without some leaves?  Here's what I decided to do!

1. Go for a walk and collect a bunch of pretty colored leaves.  Grab some pine cones and sticks too, you never know when they might come in handy!  Also, ignore the odd looks from strangers walking by as you're searching for fallen branches under the trees...

**Nature note:  remember to be kind to nature when gathering things like this.  Take only what you need, and try to take what you can from the ground instead of the trees, but remember we're not the only creatures that want these things, so be sure to take a small amount from a large area (ie don't make it look like you've vacuumed under a tree!!)


2.  Grab wax paper and your old engineering textbooks that you can't sell because those bastards have come out with new editions (Physics, seriously: you don't change, the gravitational constant is still 9.81m/s2 for first year purposes!)

I chose this one, Digital Systems, oh yeah!

Open your book to about the middle. 


Cut a piece of wax paper large enough to cover both sides of the pages.

Lay your leaves out on one side of the wax paper.


Carefully close the book on them, trying to keep your leaves flat.



Open the book a bunch of pages later and repeat the process.  When you're done, you'll have a book full of wax paper and leaves.





3.  Gather up all your other books you haven't sold, and stack them on top of the first book.  (oooh microcomputers and microprocessors, sounds interesting!)



Leave the leaves (ha ha ha) here for a few days while they dry out and get nice and flat.


4.  Take your leaves out.  You can leave them like this, or you can mod podge them and continue on! (if you're going to continue, save your wax paper!)





5.  Brush a thin coat of mod podge onto the leaves.  Place them on the wax paper that you saved (see... clever!)  Let dry and then do the other side.  






Ta da! you're done!  


Use them for anything you like now!



Stay tuned to see what I did with mine!!


**I did have a whole bunch of leaf projects from other blogs, but these got lost when my whole post did :(  **

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10 comments :

  1. Great idea! Can't wait to see what you do with them!

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  2. oh no, that really stinks that you lost your post! i would have liked to see what others did with leaves. can't wait to see what you did with yours, but they look gorgeous right now. they really kept their colors.

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  3. It must be that all your college courses gave your brain a boost, because I've never seen this idea tried before. Don't know why, as the blogging universe will mod podge anything that sits still, but your idea is marvelous. Gotta try it and soon. So, what DID you do with yours?

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  4. Ugh! So sorry that you lost your post. My computer decided to take a "time out" yesterday and I was flipping out. I'm waiting for our leaves to change and they are taking their sweet time! GREAT ideas!

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  5. I really like the mod podge idea, I am going to try it!!

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  6. I can't wait to see what you did with such perfectly preserved pieces of nature! I will definitely have to keep this in mind once the leaves here start changing colors!

    Thanks for stopping by my blog!

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  7. What a great idea! I can't wait to try it.

    I hope you don't mind. I linked your post to my PORCH AND GARDEN PARTY at firstadream.blogspot.com.

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  8. So cool! I love fall leaves and now I know how to make them last! Thanks

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  9. Love the idea of using mod podge on the leaves! Who would've thought? Thanks for sharing the idea. Visiting from Denise's party.
    ~ Sue

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  10. Fabulous Post! Can't wait to try this in the fall!

    Found you through the linky party!

    Have a great night!

    Shawn @ http://chicksdigcoupons.blogspot.com

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