Paper Crafting with Leaves - FREE craft supply!

Now, I love this time of year because there are leaves everywhere, fallen from the trees, and these are the perfect free craft essentials you can use all year round. So, this time of year, autumn, of course, you get the beautiful colors. You get the golds and the yellows and those beautiful bright reds as well, sometimes even purples in leaves. Um, and definitely be taking advantage of those. I'm going to show you a number of techniques that I use in my card making, scrapbooking, journaling, using leaves. So, I went into my garden. I collected some up and then I laid them out on some kitchen towel to dry. Patted the tops of them as well. Um, you want to make sure they're as dry as possible before you start working. So, without delay, let's jump into the first technique that I did to start creating some of these beautiful cards. So, I'm excited to try adding foils to leaves because I just think gold leaves would look absolutely beautiful. I'm going to use some flake and glitter glue and use the cold foiling technique. I found hot foiling doesn't really work. Uh, which is a real shame because I think it would look beautiful hot foiled, but cold foiling this will be absolutely fine. So, it's essentially using a glue that remains sticky and tacky so that once it's dried, you can still go ahead and add the foils. So, you do have a little bit of a time process with this because you do need to allow this glue to dry, but it does dry quite quickly. So, I'm just spreading some on a breayer and I'm going to come to the underside of my first leaf. Now, as I say, all my leaves are dry and they are all um made sure there's no moisture in them at all. So, I've pulled them out of the garden. They've already fallen off the tree, so they're just laying in the grass. So, of course, for that reason, they are damp anyway. Um, so I've picked them up and I've brought them in and I've laid them on kitchen towel, patted both sides. Now, with the brer, because it's a little bit harder to get into the center of the leaf here, but there we go. So, I've braided what I can. It's already getting sticky, so I'm going to remove it from there and allow that to dry a few more minutes. My fingers are really tacky. So, when you're using this, it's important to have a wipe just to clean up your tools as soon as possible. Now, I can leave that to air dry or I can use a heat tool on it. If you're using a heat tool for any of the um processes you're using when you're card making with leaves, be careful. Of course, the leaves could burn quite easily and then they start to shrivel up um and you don't want that. So, uh they are more delicate than paper with the heat tool. So, I'm just going to put this straight away so I don't accidentally smudge that anywhere. And then just give this a wave. I might pop my heat tool on it just for a moment, but I'm going to do this from a distance. Now, you can see the white there, the glossiness. So, it is definitely still uh very wet. So, now I'm going to put my heat tool on it just for a moment, from a real distance, and dry that off. So hopefully you can see there now that leaf is kind of glossy and it is tacky as you can see. It sticks to my finger. So now we can look at applying some foil. So we've got different types of foils. I love this rose gold one. So I'm going to try that. Now a good way to check whether your foil is going to work or not if you've got any of that tackiness on your finger. It will pull off the foil. Now this is a hot foil. So hot foils will also work as well as cold foils or named cold foils. Uh if you were to do hot foiling, you can't use a cold foil. There is a difference. But for cold foiling, you can use cold and hot foils. So just bear that in mind. So I'm going to lay this piece of beautiful rose gold foil over this leaf. Press it down. And as I press it down, you can already start to see those veins coming through. Absolutely beautiful. Now, I know that there were some areas around the middle here that didn't catch with glue. I could have gone in with a little brush and added them, but that's beautiful. Okay, now for the first reveal. Let's pull this back. And that is absolutely beautiful. Absolutely stunning. And if we take a look at this as well, we've then got a gorgeous, gorgeous leaf there. Now, I'm going to use this. So, I've got my beautiful metallic leaf that I would be putting onto a project. And I will do some projects, and I'll show them all at the end with all of these techniques as examples. But I'm also going to use this, too. So, I'm going to take a piece of black card stock because I think that's going to show up really nicely on black. And on the black card stock, I'm going to spread a thin layer of the same glue. So, this is the flake and glitter glue. With my breer again, just get a really nice even covering. And I might even have a bit too much there. But I want to pull up as much of this foil as possible. So, make sure it's spread around. I don't mind a little bit of a distressed look, but I really want in the center, don't mind the edges, but in the center, I really want to make sure I've got an even covering of the glue here so that that picks up and transfers that image as clearly as possible from the foil. So again, I'm going to wipe my breer straight away because this glue is extremely tacky and much harder to remove once it's dry. There are other tacky glues on the market. So any glue that will stay tacky after it's dried. So there's lots of them around. Now, as you can see, if I tap my finger, I can pick that up. So that is now tacky. I'm going to be really careful to not get my sticky fingers around the detail of this leaf. And I would cut this out. So I'm quite happy to go into the middle of here. Press that down. I've got a little bit there, probably where I caught my finger, but hopefully you'll get the idea and we could go over that if we wanted to. So, I've rubbed down really flat around where the leaf is. I'm just going to press out. Now, I would cut this out, die cut it, so I'm not so worried about the edges and what they look like. There we go. Flatten that all down. Beautiful. just really burnish that. Now, you could of course leave it like that so you can see the effect, but I'm going to just press this down. There's a bit there that's missing, but never mind. Now, lift up. You want to use gently in case you need to place it down and burnish anything a little bit harder. So, we've pretty much got a clear piece of plastic now for our foil. And we've got our leaf design. So if you want something really subtle, you can use that excess just like that. So we've got our leaf and our negative there as well used with the foil. Okay, onto the next technique. Now next is using a laminating machine and preserving your leaves inside a laminating pouch. Um they will last forever. Honestly, they this is so quick and easy. There's hardly any preparation. Obviously, you don't want to have any moisture in your leaves. again. Um, but I do this all the time for really nice backgrounds that are then also see-through. So, it's kind of like funky um, acetate as such in a way. So, you can also do this before you maybe die cuts. You can do this to create really fun card bases as well. I go with uh laminating pouches that are matte on one side and glossy on the other. So, they're easily available. Um, this way I can decide, do I want a glossy look like acetate or do I want the matte look and it's not frosted, it's still quite clear. Um, but yeah, so you can decide either way. So, I am going to laminate a a few different leaves here just to show you the effect. Um, let's take a really nice bright one there as well and a couple of smaller ones. Let's go with a nice dark brown one. And um let's see these. And you can switch them up as well depending on whether you prefer them to be um the back the veins or whether you want the bright side. So I'm going to be looking at having the matte side. So I think I'm going to put all of these with the veins upwards. But we can look at both sides when they when this comes out. So I'm heating my laminating machine up at the moment. That is turned on. This is a really basic one, very inexpensive. Laminating pouches are not expensive either. When you place this down, you just want to make sure you're positioning everything where you want it. So, lay that down. And of course, if you do have this with a card in mind or a journal page or a scrapbook page, whatever it may be, um you want to position accordingly. I'm just placing these down as an example today. So, I'm going to just bring this here. So just give that a good flatten. Now you will have a few small air bubbles in these sort of trapped between the veins and the leaves where the laminating pouch can't quite squish all the way down. Um but that's fine if you're happy with that because it's clear anyway. You don't really see it. Just means it's not going to be absolutely perfectly flat. The one way you can combat this is to cut away the uh the stalks a little bit. So, you're just left with the flat part or the thinner part of the leaves. Again, depends on the design and the look you're going for. Now, I can see there I've got a red. You can just about see that that has turned red. Now, that means that this is heated up and that is now ready for me. So, um no pun intended, red ready. Um so, I'm going to feed this through. So, I'm going to be very careful. It doesn't matter which way it goes, uh, facing upwards or downwards. You can see that's getting more and more red. That means it's getting more and more hot. And this will feed itself through. So, just start placing it through until that starts taking it. And I'm just going to hold this up to ensure the leaves don't drop out. And let that take it through at its own speed. Occasionally, you might want to run this through more than once as well. That should pretty much flatten as it goes. But as you can see it just coming out the other end here. If I just pull this down. Much much darker in color, more vivid colors. Really, really beautiful. So, I like to also cut mine in half and feed them through in the opposite direction to how they went through the first or second time, just to give them more of a chance to grasp onto all the different angles. And look at that. Absolutely beautiful. Now, you can cut into this if you want to. Like I say, you can d cut it. You can just frame it. You can make it put pattern paper behind it. There's lots and lots of different options with these. You've got the glossy side and you've got the matte side. Now, another really simple way of preserving your leaves is to just add simple clear embossing powder. So, I'm going to be using Wow, but obviously there's lots and lots of different brands on the market. I'm going to completely cover my leaf with clear powder. You can absolutely do this on both sides if you want to. I'll just do it on one today. Going to stick with this beautiful bright red leaf. I love the colors of autumn. So, pressing the the ink all over. And then the powder. I'm just going to take a scrap of card stock here to pop the powder on with. You can see I keep my scraps close by all the time. It's just so much easier putting it back into the tub all over. I say you can do one side and then the other onto my heat resistant mat. Pop the powder back in. Then take my heat gun. I'm going to heat set this. I am going to be careful not to get too close or keep my heat tool in one place at any time because I don't want to burn the leaf. Now, of course, bear in mind it may also blow around if you uh if you put it at too much of an angle where the air can get underneath it. So, you want to go directly down. So, I apologize you're not really going to see this too well. Um because I do like to keep the the gun straight down. That air flow is going to press the relief into my mat rather than blowing it around, getting that air underneath it. But as you can see, it's starting. I can probably hold the stalk to be honest. Let's just heat this this end up. And then I'll hold the stalk and get the rest. We go. Just going to hold this up and heat it this side. And what I like to do, give that a second. Beautiful glossy leaf. Just a moment. Let that cool. and harden. There we go. And then I like to flatten it and we get these crackles in the embossing powder as well, which just add to the effect. There we go. Absolutely gorgeous. Now, this side is untouched. You can see we've got a bit of a crack leaf there, but otherwise it's completely untouched. You can use that side if you want to, but look, so so pretty. And that would look amazing again on a dark background like so. How stunning is that? Now, leaves are one of nature's most amazing masks or stamps because of the detail in them and because of their versatility, the fact that they're made of a material that is waterproof as well. So, jelly plates. Now, I can already see I've recently used the leaf on this jelly plate. So, let's use the other side so that that print doesn't come away. I don't tend to clean my gel plate. Can you see that fern leaf in there? Just little bit. So, I I use leaves a lot on my gel plates. Let's take a piece of paper just to transfer this to. So, I've just got some plain white paper here as an example. You can use things like book pages. You could use vellum. You could use tissue paper. You know that there's lots and lots of different options for you. So, just using an American Americana, sorry, um acrylic paint. Now, if you've never done gel plate print printing before, I've got a whole beginners's um video on my channel. It's actually been really popular. Um so, you'll find that there. I will actually link that just here for you so you can see that. So, just shaking this up. I've not used this paint for a while, so giving this a bit of a shake. Pop a few dots. I really don't need a lot of paint on there. And I'm using a breayer just to spread that across. Now, I'm using a jelly arts plate. Um, but there's again lots of different brands out there that you can be using. There we go. So, give that a quick. And I'm just using an old piece of paper to the side here to clean my breer a little. So, let's go. Let's put this leaf down with the veins on the print because I think that's going to give us the nicest look. Okay. So, take a piece of paper, place that over. I'm going to press it down with my fingers first because I don't want it to move around. So, we're just pressing each of the leaves into the paint on the gel plate. So, this is just really getting our impression. There we go. Make sure we go around with our fingers. You can usually start to see through a little bit. So, make sure you go around and get into all the leaves around the very edges and you're picking up as much of that excess paint as possible. Now, we want to peel this off. We can go around here a bit more without disturbing the leaf too much. So, first of all, you've got a silhouette. Great. Quite basic, but still beautiful. Then, I'm going to carefully lift the leaf off. Now, I can print that if I want to. So, let's just pop this onto another piece of paper. Press it down with my fingers or my hand. Just use that paint. And don't forget, of course, to use the leaf afterwards with the paint on. There we go. So, we've got the painted leaf. We've got one impression. Now, this is the one that's going to be really beautiful. So, let's press this down again. Just plain white paper onto your gel plate now. Really burnishing that as well. Really lifting that up. Pressing down all the detail. And then just lift up a little piece. Ah, perfect. Yeah. Make sure you're getting it all up. Some people like to leave this on there for a while. But that is just gorgeous. Look at that for a gel plate print. Now, you can also do this in another way where you actually instead of putting a clear piece of paper on, you put this piece back over the leaf. So, effectively this design would then be inside the silhouette here. So, there's lots of different options. And as you can see, this one actually isn't too different from impressing the leaf on its own. So, if you want to try that without a gel plate at all, just spread some paint on a leaf and then press it into something into some paper, you can try that, too. So, really good fun. I'd actually be cutting these leaf shapes out and using them on a project, as well as making my backgrounds. Now, I also love to uh die cut my leaves. So, just in the same way as you would with paper. And you really want your leaves to be quite dry for this. So, let's move that up because that stem is getting in the way. I like to try and make sure that the um the vein or the stem is kind of near the center of my design, but you don't have to. You can do hearts like I am. You can do circles. You could do squares. Now, as you see, this one's still got some moisture in it because it's not a fully dry leaf. But how beautiful are these as die cuts? And I'm going to show you a card at the end using these just to give you a bit of an idea so that you don't get sort of stuck. Well, okay. So, I can d cut this, but how do I then go ahead and use them on a card? So, I'll show you once more with a drier leaf so you can see the difference because this you do need a wipe aside because you will get some moisture. This one's a much much drier leaf. So, let's again place this. I think this uh heart will only just fit on this leaf. So, let's use a tiny bit of tape there just to hold that still and run that through. And it will squash the leaf. If you want to go ahead afterwards. There we go. Look at that. Really, really beautiful. You can use either side you want. Really, really beautiful. But if you want to use the leaf um if you want to leave if you want to use the die cuts afterwards, you can then of course go ahead and do your heat embossing on them. You could use something like glossy accents on the leaves as well to kind of preserve them a little bit. I'm not sure this that's a little bit small for this one. Let's do one more. Just see if we can find one that's quite big enough. I don't think I've got one. I might have to go rumaging back in my garden. find one that's big enough for this final die cut. But I'm going to go ahead and do that. And then shall we take a look at these all of these leaves, all of these pieces that I've just shown you, these techniques made into cards. So, here are three very, very simple cards that I've created using the techniques that I've just shown you. So, um there's lots more of the leaves still for me to use and put into cards. And I've kept these as basic as possible because you can of course extend on this. You can add a lot more color, backgrounds, sentiments, stamping, whatever you want to, but just to give you a rough idea. So, I used the heart die cut uh leaves there. Just lined them up, put a bit of sticky tape behind them just to hold them in place. And I used some stitching there, some actual uh sewing machine stitching, small sentiment, a few splats um in the oranges pulled from the leaves. So, a very simple card there. Perfect for Thanksgiving, for fall, for autumn, but of course, any time of year really. Then I've got that beautiful gold foiled leaf. I think that needs to stand out on a plain background and really be the focal point. So, that's what I've done here. I've simply placed that on here. I would probably treat the reverse of the leaf just so that it lasts a little bit longer. either with the heat embossing um maybe with some spray acrylic. You could do that as well or you can place uh leaves into water and glycerin h allow them to dry or soak for a little while. Allow them to dry and they will be preserved for a very long time. Um but you can then go ahead and do your foiling after that. So a simple sentiment on a bright white background. I think that is just stunning. And then I've got the leaf that was in the laminated pouch. I've used the matte side. Um, I haven't finished this off at all, of course. I've just popped a sentiment on there. I cut an aperture. So, you can use a dye. You can hand cut an aperture to your size. As you can see, it's frosted, but it's slightly see-through. I've left this inside unfinished just to show you how I just simply taped around the edges and tape that down on the inside. But I would then put something over the top, but keep that aperture cut out of the backing piece as well, so you can really still see through it. And of course, you've got the choice. You can use the glossy side if you prefer. So, there's just three ways of using those leaves. Again, very, very simple, very basic, but you can extend on these and make them prettier, make them more detailed, whatever it may be. So, I hope you've enjoyed this, learned some different techniques to go and have a play with. There's lots of leaves about at the minute if you're in the UK. Um, have some fun and I'd love to see what you make using any of these techniques. Leave me a comment if you can think of any other ways of using leaves in your paper crafting, too. I'd love to hear them. And hopefully I'll see you again very soon. Take care, everybody.