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Family Photo Projects

If you are out and about on wonderful sunny autumn days go and collect some interesting looking leaves. What you want to watch out for are nice color changes in the leaves and exciting looking shapes. When you get home put them in a flower press or between the pages of an old thick book (soft pages with text on them work better than a picture book because the paper has to absorb the moisture from the leaves). Make sure you tighten the screws well on the flower press or put another few heavy books on top of the book that your flowers are in. After about a week you can check on them and when they are totally dry and flat then they are ready. Here are some cool ideas what you can use them for.

• A bunch of nice leaves of different colors, sizes and shapes already pressed so they are completely dry and flat.
• A simple glass frame.
• A photograph.
• Watercolors and a glass of water.
• An old toothbrush.
• A fine wire tea sieve.
• Newspaper surface to work on.

You take a white piece of paper the size of your picture frame and arrange the leaves around the outside border. The outline shape of the leaves is what matters; you can put them back to front if you want. Make sure you leave enough space for the picture in the middle.

Then you take the toothbrush and dip it slightly into the water and then move it around in a watercolor of your choice to pick up the color (I recommend starting with the lightest color first and working your way down to the darker tones.). By brushing the toothbrush over the side of the tea sieve you create a very fine rain of sprinkles all over the leaves and the paper. An important factor in getting the spraying right is the amount of water in the paint on the toothbrush. Don’t let it be too watery because that will give you very big splashes, which are hard to control, and if you have it too dry it will not sprinkle. Maybe practice a little on another sheet of paper first.

Then you keep on sprinkling different color layers all over the paper and leaves. The most important part is not to move the leaves AT ALL once you have started. If you do it will ruin the effect. If you have covered the entire paper with different colored sprinkles you can remove the leaves and see the imprints you have made. You will get the best results if you sprinkle densely and fine.

If you have used some large leaves in your first design you may now want to put a small leave inside the white imprint and gently sprinkle another layer on top. You can also just put a complete new set of leaves over the first one and sprinkle another round; the second round will stand out better when you use darker colors but feel free to experiment with it.

Finally just place your favorite autumn picture in the middle of the leaf imprints and put your artwork inside the glass frame. It was this easy to create a unique seasonal picture frame and you can exchange your favorite picture any time you want to.

You may want to save the leaves with the prettiest colors and use them directly. This would sort of be the reverse project from what we just did. You start with a white piece of paper again and sprinkle the background with your choice of colors. Then you put the photograph in the middle and arrange the colorful leaves around it. The idea of imprints is of course not restricted by season. You can in fact use any object you find in your house that has an interesting shape (flat objects are just the most convenient) and in spring and summer you can press flowers, which make beautiful shapes when imprinted.

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