Preserving Fall Leaves
November 28, 2017For the last several years I have wanted to preserve fall leaves. I had two beautiful maple trees in my front yard and every fall would collect the vibrantly colored leaves. I would bring them in the house to watch them dry out, turn brown, crinkle up, and disintegrate. One year I even laid them out on newspaper in the garage, which was the perfect place for me to forget about them while I thought about searching ways to preserve them. Not this year! I was not going to miss out on saving those beautiful leaves.
I did what most of my friends do when we want to look for craft ideas; I searched on Pinterest. Whenever I look up a craft idea I always look at multiple sites for similarities and differences. What I found is there are several ways to preserve leaves, such as Mod Podge, glycerin, wax paper, an acrylic spray, or with washing soda. Different methods have their benefits and I wanted to check out as many as possible, however this year, due to time constraints I only tried Mod Podge, glycerin, and washing soda.
These are the sites I referenced for different methods of preservation.
How to Press and Preserve Fall Leaves
Preserve Autumn Leaves in Glycerin
Preserve Your Favorite Fall Leaves
Make Skeleton Leaves
Here's what I learned:
Mod Podge
Using Mod Podge to preserve leaves is simple but expect it to take a good chunk of time (this took me a day or two because of dry time). Things you'll need for this project:
- Newspaper
- Leaves
- Heavy books
- Wax paper (could also use parchment or aluminum foil)
- Mod Podge
- Foam paint brush
- Q-tip
It is ideal for the leaves you have collected to be fresh, pliable, and brightly colored. Do not let them sit out on their own to dry as they will crinkle up and lose some color. Put the leaves in newspaper so they don't overlap each other and place them under heavy books to lie flat and dry out. I left mine only for a day or two. They were still pliable but I think this would also work if you let them dry for a week. I will try this next year to test how well it worked.
Once the leaves had been flattened by books, I laid them out on wax paper on the table. I used a foam paint brush to apply the Mod Podge one side at a time. I painted one side one day and the other side the next day. I used a q-tip for holding down the leaf so that I would not get my hands all messy.
Part of the reason I only let the leaves dry for a day or two was that I wanted to see if there was the potential for them to remain flexible. I had some leaves I had collected but did not preserve that were dry and crackly within a couple days of being indoors. They tended to curl up upon themselves and became dull in color. There were other leaves I preserved but only covered one side in Mod Podge. These leaves stayed pliable a bit longer than untreated leaves, but did dry out and curl up somewhat within 3-5 days. However they held their color better. Of course the leaves that were double sided with Mod Podge did the best in my opinion.
The leaves that I preserved on both sides with Mod Podge did dry out, but were still partially flexible after a week. If you wanted to shape the leaves after preserving them I imagine you could do that quite easily if you only let them dry for a day or two before applying Mod Podge. These leaves retain their color and tend to lie more flat than the one sided leaves. Personally when doing this again next year I plan on applying Mod Podge to both sides.
Once the leaves had been flattened by books, I laid them out on wax paper on the table. I used a foam paint brush to apply the Mod Podge one side at a time. I painted one side one day and the other side the next day. I used a q-tip for holding down the leaf so that I would not get my hands all messy.
Part of the reason I only let the leaves dry for a day or two was that I wanted to see if there was the potential for them to remain flexible. I had some leaves I had collected but did not preserve that were dry and crackly within a couple days of being indoors. They tended to curl up upon themselves and became dull in color. There were other leaves I preserved but only covered one side in Mod Podge. These leaves stayed pliable a bit longer than untreated leaves, but did dry out and curl up somewhat within 3-5 days. However they held their color better. Of course the leaves that were double sided with Mod Podge did the best in my opinion.
The leaves that I preserved on both sides with Mod Podge did dry out, but were still partially flexible after a week. If you wanted to shape the leaves after preserving them I imagine you could do that quite easily if you only let them dry for a day or two before applying Mod Podge. These leaves retain their color and tend to lie more flat than the one sided leaves. Personally when doing this again next year I plan on applying Mod Podge to both sides.
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| Laying out leaves on newspaper to be pressed. |
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| Applying Mod Podge to maple leaves. |
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| Leaves drying on wax paper. |
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| Double sided Mod Podge leaves drying on wax paper. |
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| Dried Mod Podge leaves, double sided. |
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| Dried Mod Podge leaves, single sided. |
Glycerin
Compared to the Mod Podge preservation method glycerin is much less involved but it will need to sit for several days in the glycerin solution. For this project you'll need:
- Fresh fall leaves
- Small baking sheets (I got cheap ones from Walmart)
- Water
- Vegetable glycerin
- Measuring cup
- Paper towels or wax paper
This one I am going to try again next year. The point of doing the glycerin leaves is that they remain flexible which can be beneficial for projects and otherwise just plain cool. One month after preservation they are not dried out and move as a regular leaf would. My disappointment was in the color. The colors got darker, similar to how naturally drying leaves get darker before completely turning brown. Any flaw in the leaf is magnified. If you are going to attempt to preserve leaves via glycerin pick out perfect leaves! Pick them off the tree if you have to in order to get the nicest freshest leaves that you can. That being said again I am going to try this again next year, I am even going to try to preserve flowers in glycerin to see how they turn out.
The solution is simple: 1 part glycerin to 2 parts water. When I made up my solution initially I did 1/3 cup glycerin and 2/3 cup water. I ended up doubling this in order to cover the leaves. I put the leaves in a baking sheet then poured the solution over it. I then put another baking sheet on top and weighted it down a bit. I did this not only because of what I read on one of the websites sited above, but it was a way to make sure the leaves were fully submerged and hopefully not exposed to air while in the solution. Then I let the leaves sit for a week. When I took them out I set them on the wax paper to dry because I already had it out for the Mod Podge leaves, you probably want to dab them with paper towels.
Three things I will do differently next year.
1. Pick fresh fall leaves with no flaws from the trees not the ground.
2. Not heat the water when adding it to the glycerin. I did this because the glycerin was so thick and I did not think they would mix well. I am wondering if this added to my disappointment in the end coloring of the leaves.
3. Leave the leaves to sit for a shorter amount of time. I am curious if I could leave them for less than a week. One site I referenced left it for shorter and I wonder if that may affect the end color.
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| Weighing down leaves in glycerin solution. |
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| Glycerin leaves drying on wax paper. |
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| Glycerin leaves tend to accentuate the flaws in a leaf. This leaf used to be more yellow, but turned brown and black near holes or small spots in the leaves. |
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| Glycerin leaves are very flexible and do not crack like dried Mod Podge leaves. Careful though, they still tear like unpreserved leaves. |
Washing Soda
I think skeleton leaves look so cool, but this project was a flop. Here is what I did, and things that I will try differently next year. What I used for this project:
- Fall leaves
- Aluminum pans
- Washing soda
- Water
- Stiff paint brush
My first mistake was not taking the time to find waxy leaves like magnolia leaves. Honestly around the Pacific Northwest I am not sure where you will find such leaves but I will next year.
Second mistake not boiling the leaves. After what happened this time I will buy a cheap pot from a garage sale or Goodwill but I will not soak the leaves again. I did this because I had more delicate leaves and the website said this is an alternate way to do it. I spent hours and days trying to get this to work, but in my opinion it is not worth the effort. I followed the recipe on the Wiki How page for soaking the leaves. If you want the recipe look here but I would not use it again. I doubled the recipe in the hope that it would work but it did not. Not worth your time.
Third and fourth mistake using aluminum and letting washing solution sit in it. I was almost sure at the beginning that the washing soda was not reacting correctly with the leaves but instead with the aluminum pan I was using. This was confirmed after letting it sit a couple days when the solution bled through the bottom and onto a cutting board I had underneath. I had to throw out the leaves, the aluminum, and my cutting board.
I was really disappointed that this did not work. I am going to research further before doing this again also making sure that multiple people have tried it that way and gotten it to work. Looking into it this year it looks like skeleton leaves are difficult to get to work anyway.
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| Initial time trying to soak the leaves in washing soda. |
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| Doubled solution of washing soda to make sure the leaves were more submerged. |
Overall I was pleased to be able to learn so much about preserving leaves and look forward to the opportunity next year to replicate and further experiment with methods of preservation. In the end the leaves I was able to preserve turned out beautifully and I used them to help my mother in law decorate for Thanksgiving. Here are some pictures of how we used the Mod Podge and glycerin leaves.
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| Centerpiece using Mod Podge leaves. |
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| Centerpiece using glycerin leaves. |
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