Making New Leaf Prints

We recently returned from a wonderful trip to Alabama. While there I picked up some leaves. I want to create something to remember this visit, so I made some new leaf prints. To start I needed to preserve the leaves. For information on preserving leaves and other botanicals check out this blog post. 

Now is the time to preserve them. A couple of mine were a bit dry from the 5-hour trip home, but they worked great once they soaked for a couple days. Here they are resting on the paper towels after removal from the solution.

The solution looks like this after removing the leaves. I never reuse it.

Once the leaves are dry it’s time to do some printing. I started on a piece of white fabric. These leaves will be sewn and then cut out. Here is the tutorial and a video on how to print with leaves.

Because I intend to use old jeans in this project, I thought I’d test out how the printed leaves would look on the denim. I’m not sure I’ll use them or print others on the denim. I’m still in the thinking stage.

I also thought for this project I’d also make some leaves with Lutradur. First I needed to print on cardstock. See this tutorial for how to make Lutadur leaves.

I also painted the Lutadur with Marabu Fashion Spray paints, although you can use any type of paint on them.

Then as I was cleaning the studio up I saw the leaves that printed on the paper I used while printing the leaves on fabric. I liked them so much I decided to keep them. I’m not sure I’ll use them in my project, but they were so pretty!

Now to get started on sewing up these leaves, cutting the jeans, and printing some pictures. Have a wonderful week. I hope to be back by the end of the week with progress on my project.