Nothing says autumn (my favorite season!) like colorful fall leaves, so we chose leaf-themed crafts for this month’s Pinterest challenge.

You know how our Pinterest projects — like Kathryn’s duct tape roses, my lamp shade, and the fabric-wrapped wreath — have come out really well every month so far? Well, this month, our projects didn’t come out quite like we’d envisioned. We hit our first Pinterest flops.

1 – Hammered leaf prints

I thought this one was going to be soooo easy. Just find colorful leaves, lay on heavy weight paper, cover with a paper towel, and hammer the leaves so that the pigment transfers onto the paper. I chose to do this in my nature journal, and chose leaves from four different trees in my back yard: a dogwood, a silver maple, a red maple, and an ornamental plum.

I hammered two leaves and Kathryn did two. I was surprised how hard we had to hammer. At first I thought we could do it on the kitchen table, but we had to move to the floor, which is linoleum over concrete slab.

Though some color did transfer, it was much less than I’d hoped, and didn’t seem to matter which side we faced down on the paper. The leaves were destroyed after we’d hammered them, and what little color did transfer had round hammer-circles throughout. {Maybe a rubber mallet would work better?}

On the page at left, you can see the leaves laid out to show the size and color I was attempting to transfer. I’ll keep this in my nature journal, but I’m disappointed it didn’t come out prettier.

2 – Leaf roses

Kathryn chose to try making leaf roses. We started the project at a disadvantage because there was no tutorial — just a photo series on how to make them. We used red maple leaves, and quickly realized we had to pluck them off the tree in order for them to be pliable enough to fold like in the tutorial.

We both tried to make these leaves look like a rose, but this is the best we came up with. Neither Kathryn or I were pleased with it at all. (It has since been disassembled and scattered around the yard. And probably chomped on by the dog, who has a thing for tearing up sticks and leaves.)

Oh, well!

Now it’s your turn!

We want to see your Pinterest projects — the “flips” and the “flops”! You can link up here with me or at any of these other host blogs:

• Heather at Blog, She Wrote
• Sharla at The Chaos and the Clutter
• Alisha at Flourish
• Dianna at The Kennedy Adventures
• Jamie at The Unlikely Homeschool

Jamie

Wife, mom, J-ma. Introvert who enjoys good books, sunshine, and authentic conversation. Often seen with a steaming mug of tea in hand – unless it’s lost yet again in the microwave. Read more »