Fall crafting

Since fall is now officially my favorite season, I've been trying to find ways to take advantage of all the beautiful foliage around. So Kate and I have been busy crafting away.  Last week we made a few leaf garlands:



They're really easy to do:

1)  Gather beautiful fall leaves and press them for a week or two until they're flat.

2)  Cover pressed leaves on both sides with Mod Podge.



3)  Let the Mod Podge dry:

The colander's not mandatory but we found it worked pretty well.  Or you can lay the leaves on waxed paper, dry side down, flip over and paint the other side then let dry.

4)  Use a glue gun to attach the leaves to a length of string, yarn or twine.

6)  Hang them all over your house!

Kate and I may have gone a little crazy with the leaf garlands, but they're so pretty!

Our next project didn't turn out quite as expected, but it's still pretty, I think:

 For this one, take pressed but un-Mod Podged leaves, paint a thin layer of Mod Podge over a glass or jar, stick on the leaves and cover them with Mod Podge, then let dry.  Well, that was the plan.  But the leaves wouldn't stick to the jar!  So we got out some plain white glue and stuck them on, then painted over the leaves with Mod Podge.  But the leaves still weren't sticking!  So I got the brilliant idea of wrapping waxed paper over the wet leaves, all around the glass, thinking I'd peel the waxed paper off later after the glue had dried.  However, my "waxed paper" turned out to be tissue paper, which wouldn't peel off.  So we got an opaque candleholder instead of a clear one.  Still pretty, but not what we expected.

We've now managed to use up all the beautiful leaves we've gathered so we're off to the forest again tomorrow to find some more.

Not that we mind.  Look at this!

Definitely not a hardship to take a walk through these woods...

As always, I can't take credit for these craft ideas.  They're from here:
Leaf garland
Candleholder