Water-colored Autum Leaves

This was a fun project.  I didn't feel up to dipping leaves in beeswax again this year, so I went looking for other ways to decorate for the season.  I had such success with the water-colors on coffee filters project last year, that I decided to do a variation on that.  Although most of this would be fairly easy for the kids to do (other than the cutting out), my own kids were not involved in it this time around.

I began with spreading out a number of coffee filters on a plastic tablecloth in my workroom.  With a spray bottle, I wet them all down with water.

I have really come to love these liquid water colors I ordered a couple of years ago.  The colors are quite vivid, and they are so much easier to work with than the pan or tube colors for things like this.  I just took the bottles in yellow, green, orange, red and brown and proceeded to dribble and drop paint onto the wet coffee filters.

I'm afraid the colors look all wonky because of the blue tablecloth.  Next time I do something like this for the blog I will try to remember to use white!  Anyway, I downloaded and printed out an autumn leaf template I found on the internet, and cut out the leaves.  I pinned a leaf to a stack of several filters, and cut them out.

When I had a nice pile of each type of leaf, I took a brown Sharpie marker and drew the simple veins on each leaf.  Then I threaded them onto sturdy button thread and put them up in a couple of places.  I left a few unstrung to tape with double-stick tape to our french doors.

For more creative inspiration, why not stop by Natural Suburbia for Creative Friday?