Autumn Leaf Lantern

I love fall. The changing of the leaves and the chill in the air make me think of cuddling up by firelight. So I started to think about making lanterns, like my decoupage lanterns, using beautiful, coloful, autumn leaves. In the end I was mildly successful.

To get started we needed leaves, lots of them. This was a great activity to do with the kids, they loved gathering the leaves!

We laid out all of the leaves on the table so we could look them over and choose the ones we liked. It’s important to choose mostly flat leaves. After we had our picks I then snipped off the ends and rolled them even flatter with a rolling-pin.

Next we mixed some white glue and water together into a semi thick liquid.

After that things went horribly wrong awry. The leaves didn’t stick. No matter what I tried they were not interested in sticking and when they did they didn’t do it all the way. I pushed, cajoled, prodded, rolled again, snipped and tried every other trick I knew but nothing worked to get those suckers to sit flat. That’s when I came up with an idea. I would use tissue paper over the leaves to hold them down.

I quickly scrounged up some white tissue paper from the craft cabinet and cut it into strips. I then laid the tissue paper on top of the already glue soaked leaves and pressed it down. It worked like a charm. It held the leaves in place.

Although it didn’t really achieve the look I was going for I think it worked out ok.

If you try this and come up with a way to tame those uncooperative leaves I would love to hear about it! Drop me a line via the contact form or write a comment below.