Nothing says autumn like brightly colored leaves to me…and as a former northeasterner, I can honestly say that there are few things I miss more than sugar maples in October. For this project, you’ll only need a few simple items and a little patience:
- Wreath form – I used grapevine because I didn’t want to have to worry about covering the whole thing completely, but plastic, metal or foam forms would work too.
- Lots of cardstock in fall colors – I like to use up my cheaper 65lb. cardstock for projects like this.
- Sketch pens – I chose metallic golds, bronzes, and shimmery brown for mine.
- Hot glue
- Optional – Battery operated LED light set, inks for edges of leaves, and burlap ribbon.
- I started out by placing all six of my leaf designs on my workspace. Since I was using an 18in. wreath form, the leaves were already sized nicely as is at about 3-4in. long.
- I wanted to sketch the vein details using my Sketch Pens and then cut the outer shapes from my cardstock. To do this easily, I would need to change the color of one of those sets of lines. I chose to change my vein lines to yellow because I was trying to visualize the final product, but it’s much easier just to change the color of the shape outline.
- To do so for these designs, you’ll need to select each shape and click on “Release Compound Path” in the Object Menu. Then, click on only the set of lines you want to change, and select your new color in the Line Color Menu.
Now you’re all set to just sketch and cut your leaves on each different color of cardstock. Using the “Cut by Line Color” function in the Cut Settings Window, you can set the interior color to coordinate with your sketch pens, and the outlines to coordinate with your blade.
- After my leaves were cut, I inked and curled all of the edges. I think this little bit of extra effort always helps to create more realistic leaves and flowers. Here I applied Distress Inks in red, orange or brown using an ink applicator tool and curled the points just using my thumb and forefinger.
- Finally, just start gluing away! I tried to make sure my colors and shapes were well-mixed, but otherwise I just picked a place to start and kept going.
For a few finishing touches, I added a burlap bow and tiny orange LED lights underneath my leaves to create a little backlighting that matches my Halloween decor set to go up in a few weeks. For a different look, you could make the vein details out of double-sided adhesive and some gold glitter instead. Have you started decorating for fall yet?
Shapes Used:
This is a beautiful wreath. I also really like the bow. I believe that I already have this cardstock….just need to start cutting. Thanks so much.
Thanks so much Karen!