Tuesday, 22 October 2013

Autumn Leave Wreath




I LOVE the bright colours of autumn leaves and this week have tried to make a wreath that cherishes these colours and brings them into our home.

Whilst I made this, it is a project you could easily do with your children over half term, so I encourage you to spend time looking for beautiful leaves to use for this project and then get the kids involved!









For this wreath you will need a large selection of leaves, some glue (PVA or ModPodge) a cereal packet and a paper clip.
Begin by pressing your leaves in a book. It takes only a few days, but in doing this you will find the leaves are dry and flat making your job much easier and longer lasting.

Lay them flat in the pages of a book, and then put the book under something heavy for a day or two.
I got Jack to help me draw around a plate onto the back of the cereal packet.

Then I cut it out and using a slightly smaller plate I cut another circle out of the centre.

I repeated this with both sides of the cereal packet so I had two identical cardboard hoops.

Once you have cut them both out, glue the colourful side of one of the circles and lay a paperclip sticking out of the top of the circle. Now place a little glue over the paper clip and then stick on the second circle shape colourful side down.








The paper clip will act as the hook to hang your final piece up (see picture)

Cover one side of the cardboard circle with glue and then start sticking on leaves.

You can see that I have positioned similar looking, large leaves spaced well apart from each other.

The leaves that are the least attractive should go on first.




Now glue over the leaves and add more until all the cardboard is covered.

Layer the glue and the leaves until you are pleased with the over all shape of the wreath. Leave the nicest, prettiest leaves until last to display on the top.

The whole wreath should now be covered completely in glue and left to dry.

At this point my husband pointed out that it might have been better to cover the table with newspaper first!


I left my wreath to dry on top of a bowl so the air could get to every part of the wreath.








Several hours later, the glue is dry and you are ready to hang your wreath.

The glue has made the structure much more robust and you will now be able to hang it up by the paperclip to display your pretty autumn wreath.


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