We've been doodling and drawing on our beautiful fall leaves. In fact, we loved our Thanksgiving leaf garland so much last year that we are in the process of making another one. Although this time we somehow moved away from writing down all that we are thankful for and mostly just enjoyed the leaves as canvases for art.
After we gathered the leaves we've been pressing and drying...
...we drew, wrote, and doodled on them with silver sharpies.
I love the metallic sharpies! They work so well on the leaves and show up beautifully.
There was a fair amount of doodling on the mat board underneath the leaves as well...
Once we were finished drawing, I decided to try something that I found on Gingerbread Snowflakes via Pinterest: coating the dried leaves with Mod Podge to bring back the vibrant color of the leaves (they fade a bit with drying) and also to make them less brittle and more flexible. I spread my leaves out on wax paper first, brushed mod podge on one side, let dry, then turned them over and brushed on another coat.
It really works! The leaves are supple again and vibrantly colored. Beautiful! This last batch is mine by the way. Maia had moved on after drawing and I didn't want to mod podge hers without her permission (she gave it shortly afterward).
Now we just have to assemble our garland...
By the way, if you wanted to draw on fall leaves but don't have any pressed, you could either press them after drawing, OR, you could draw on the leaves then use them in a contact paper suncatcher or stained glass. The contact paper keeps the leaves flat as they dry and displays them at the same time.
If you liked this leaf drawing activity, then you might like the other autumn and halloween crafts, recipes, and decorations in my ebook:
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