Collecting Fall Leaves for Craft Projects

About a year ago, I ran across this tutorial on the blog gingerbread snowflakes.  I also ran across this tutorial on the same blog on pressing fall leaves for future use. I loved the way the project looked so I collected a lot of leaves, pressed them between newspapers for a few weeks and attempted the project.  It was a miserable failure. For me, the leaves wouldn’t stick to the jar I was using. I threw the whole thing out and forgot about it.

Fast forward a year and it is fall again and the leaves have turned color. I love the colors of leaves in the fall. I couldn’t resist collected a few leaves to try this project again.  I collected only a few leaves to start and am pressing them in a book. I am hoping that it works better this time. At the very least, I have some leaves I can press and preserve for other projects that use fall leaves.

Blue and Black Net Stitch

Once fall came, I wanted to start a project inspired by fall trends. I started by looking at style.com. The website shows all the fashion shows each season in New York, Paris and Milan. According to a trend report, the trends for fall are big coats, brocade, matching prints, neo goth, suits, dresses with peplums and fur as an accent.  I also saw a lot of blue and black in fall fashion. I liked the idea of neo goth and brocade I have always liked blue and black and wanted to use those colors. I could picture a project using net stitch that would have be a little bit neo goth. I reviewed how to do net stitch and started this project.  I haven’t decided if I want this to be a necklace or a bracelet but I am happy with how the project is coming along.