A Bash at Skeleton Leaves

Do you love crafts that are challenging where defeat is not an option?

Skeleton leaves are one of those crafts that scream difficult so I had to give it a go. 

Advice tip: Do not do this if you are in a hurry, or in a bad mood. You need time and patience, its a tedious and rather stinky project.

My first mistake, discovering skeleton leaves at the turn of the season from Summer to Autumn. Leaves that have decayed and fallen do not work. 

You need beautiful lush green leaves....or something close to it. 

To the park!!

Did we do a good job?

My son loves rubbing leaves with crayons, well watching me do it. You know when you get the pattern through the paper. So I promised him we would do it if he helped me find green leaves first. 

We chose an oak leaf, a lime tree leaf, an ivy that grew on the lime tree and a few laurel leaves.

I researched a few tutorials and it seems there are 2 ways of doing this. The water soaking way which takes nearly a month, or the chemical route that is done in a few hours. Im an impatient scientist so give me the chemicals please!!

The tutorial I used was from icreativeideas.com and here it is!!

Wow it takes so so so long to get the flesh off the leaves. I used a variety of utensils, an old baby toothbrush, a chunky kids paintbrush and a soft artists brush. 

The skeletons are stronger than you think and can take a serious pounding from the various brushes. 

The laurel leaves did not work, They just turned brown and hard and went straight into the bin.

The oak leaf resulted in this 

I punched and pounded and this was all the flesh that would come away after 30 minutes so I left it at that.

I have to say for a first attempt I'm pretty happy. You can see the skeleton quite clearly and it has an ugly beauty I am drawn to. 

Next the lime tree leaves. 

The first one went pretty well but if you look along the spine in the centre the leaf started to separate so I abandoned ship and moved onto the second lime leaf I had and....

Success!!

Its such a pretty leaf. I know its not 100% clean of the flesh but I like that.

Finally though.....the ivy leaf was the most surprising. When i took it from the pot it had completely warped. The skin on the front and back of the leaf peeled off easily in my hand and magically after a tiny bit of brushing and a rinse this is what I got...

The stem fell off but look at those beautiful veins. Im thrilled to bits with this leaf its so delicate.

Some people bleach the leaves to remove the colour but I like the dirty green plus I want to mount one of them onto a frame I got today in Penneys (or to those outside of Ireland Primark) for €4. 

I have to say this is a very cheap project which is nice. The washing soda was €1 and the leaves were free. Not too bad eh?

I have to go now and figure out how I'm going to mount the leaf onto a glass pane. 

Keep a look out for the finished product!!

Happy skeletonising,

Nic x