Leaves, leaves, nuts and leaves!

What to do with all these gorgeous fall leaves?  How about tangling on some?

same leaf looks so different depending how the light catches it. Tangles: Printemps & Shattuck

Yet another angle

Maryhill in both silver and gold

"Nzeppel 

I tangled with a few different pens I already had.... Sakura Pen-touch extra fine point (the gold and silver examples above), 

a Sharpie water based metallic paint pen extra fine point in copper rose (below)

Enyshou

a different angle really shows off the lines

 and a Gelly Roll gold shadow pink (below). 

Printemps

 And now I have a bouquet of leaves!

And another idea! If you have a die cutting machine, you might try this technique to transfer color and texture from the leaves to paper.  Here's a link to mostly more lovely examples, but there's also, eventually, instructions too.  Thanks Terry for reminding me about that video!

As you can see, I couldn't stop.  Different leaves and different paper create slightly different results.  

And here are a few I've turned into cards already.  Including one that I tangled a bit on (when in doubt aura!) with the tangle Patena.

For either the drawing or the pressing, I suggest starting with leaves that are still supple.  I placed mine in a bowl of water to soak off some dirt.  The ones I pressed, I carefully dried with paper towels and let them finish air drying before pressing.  I'd suggest trying to press them the same day you pick, clean and dry them just so they don't crumble.  For the ones I drew on, I added glycerin.  After some trial and error, I think you need about a ratio of 3 parts water to 1 part glycerin.  I soaked some and others I misted with a spray bottle.  Both seemed to work fine.  

my first attempts with dry leaves and my pen point kept breaking through the leaves

Oh, yes, nearly forgot the "nuts" part of the post.  I saw an interesting card design on Pinterest and followed the link to make this double diamond card.  I used Karen Burniston's Woodland Animals dies.  They are really nice quality dies with built in stencils for the faces.  I just followed her video instructions to put them together....so cute!  I also used a lawn fawn stamp and die set Cheery Christmas (the tree, ladder, bird and smaller squirrel).  I made a custom envelope for it too as it wasn't a standard size. 

And yes, I've been absent for awhile...but I am working on a project all of October.  I've been posting daily updates on the Zentangle Mosaic app.  I will be sharing the finished project with you shortly.  Look for more after the end of the month.

Thanks for stopping by!