Classes at school, kindergarten, extracurricular creative lessons are invariably associated with making crafts. Most often, natural materials are selected for work, for example, nuts, cones, branches and leaves.
Nature is the most talented artist, thanks to which petals of a very diverse color can be found in the fall.
Benefits of choosing leaves
Natural materials have long been recognized as the most affordable material for independent creative work. The choice of leaves is obvious, due to the many advantages:
- Convenient shape and structure (the surface of the sheet is very easy to cut with ordinary scissors).
- Collecting and drying autumn foliage is not difficult.
- The surface of the leaf can be coated with a thin layer of paints (for example, acrylic-based) and clear varnish.
- The natural variety of colors and patterns allows you to create beautiful crafts from autumn leaves.
The selected material is safe for humans, does not contain toxic impurities.
Leaves Drying Methods
Making leaf crafts with your own hands begins with the preparation of consumables, first of all, drying the leaves. The remaining moisture prevents the high-quality adhesion of the leaves to the surface of the paper (when creating appliqués). In addition, improperly dried material will quickly lose its shape and natural color. There are several methods for drying natural material:
- Natural drying of foliage, for which the material is placed in any dry and warm place with sufficient ventilation. A similar method is resorted to when ideally even leaf blades are not needed for work.
- The second technique is used to obtain a perfectly smooth natural material. For this purpose, the sheet, cleaned of dirt and dust, is dried, and then placed between the pages of the book. A press is installed on top to smooth the surface of the leaf blade.
There is also a faster way that requires an iron. The sheet is laid between the pages of newspaper or thick paper, and ironed with an iron.
Skeleton DIY Sheet
To create very beautiful crafts, they often resort to removing the soft tissue of the sheet. After the complete removal of the tissues, only the skeleton and veins remain, which are a beautiful mesh.
In fact, ready-made leaves for creative work can be purchased at shops or florist centers. The most hardworking craftsmen can resort to one of the following methods:
- Dry technique, which consists in knocking out the soft tissues of the leaf using a special soft brush.
- Natural method. To obtain beautiful leaves with an openwork surface, you will need to wait until spring.
- The material overwintered under the snow loses moisture and often soft tissues, and the remaining skeleton can be used for making crafts.
- Finally, the fastest way is to boil the leaves in a solution of household chemicals.
- For a high-quality removal of all soft tissues, you will need to take a chemically aggressive composition.
- After digestion of the leaf blades, the material is laid out on newspaper or thick paper, and knocked out with a soft brush.
- In the photo of crafts from openwork leaves, you can see that each leaf has a unique structure, which is repeated by the veins.
Making appliqués from leaves
Having prepared the basic material and a set of necessary tools, you can safely get to work. The most popular technique is making leaf crafts on paper.
Applications are widely used as exhibits for school exhibitions, can be stored for a long time, decorate the interior of a house or summer cottage.
For creative work, you will need cardboard or thick paper, glue, scissors, templates for creating various shapes. It can be an original owl, a fox with a bushy tail, a fish, where each scale is made of colorful leaves.
Lush gif.webpt bouquet
To make a beautiful gif.webpt bouquet, you will need any large leaves, however, most often craftsmen prefer maple leaves.
After washing and standard drying, the creative work begins.
How to make a leaf craft:
- As a basis, you need to prepare a wooden skewer or stick. The number of sticks depends on the number of buds in the bouquet.
- The maple leaf is folded in half, and the resulting blank is wrapped around a skewer. The more turns of the leaf blade around the stick, the more luxuriant the bud turns out.
- On the lower edge of the bud, the material is fixed with a strong thread. You need to fasten the leaves very carefully so as not to damage the delicate fabric.
From large beautiful leaves with a bright color, you can make an unusually stylish package for a bouquet by connecting the parts with glue or threads.
Transparent picture of leaves
Unusually beautiful paintings can be made from the skeleton of a leaf blade. Openwork blanks are obtained in one of the indicated ways.
To make a picture, you need to prepare two glass plates of the same size, four metal corners that act as fasteners, any beautiful stand.
Instructions on how to make a craft from leaves:
- Leaves are laid out on any flat surface in the form of a picture. It can be a beautifully laid branch with petals, an openwork figure.
- A thin layer of metallized paint is applied to the surface of the future painting. Excess decorating composition is removed.
- After the paint has dried, carefully transfer the craft to the lower glass plate. It is better to work with gloves so that there are no fingerprints, smears, dirt on the glass.
The upper plate is carefully lowered onto the composition of leaves, metal corners are attached.
Photo of crafts from leaves
