Book Page Leaf Garland

Debbie Matenopoulos and Cameron Mathison welcome actor Dylan Neal from the Hallmark Channel original movie “Truly, Madly, Sweetly.” Actress Beth Hall talks about CBS’ “Mom.” Emmy Award-winning TV host and author Samantha Harris prepares black bean b… — Debbie Matenopoulos and Cameron Mathison welcome actor Dylan Neal from the Hallmark Channel original movie “Truly, Madly, Sweetly.” Actress Beth Hall talks about CBS’ “Mom.” Emmy Award-winning TV host and author Samantha Harris prepares black bean burgers. 2017 Best Home Cook winner, Toya Boudy makes creamy applewood bacon pasta with seared chicken and tomatoes. The Cool Mom Co. creator, Lizzy Mathis joins us with DIY pencil pouches. "The Rise" author, Danette May discusses how to rise up and live with radical authenticity and freedom. Debbie bakes maple pecan streusel muffins with cider glaze. Ken Wingard creates a fall leaf garland. Shirley Bovshow shows us fall seed roasting. Kym Douglas has a new beauty product roundup. Credit: © 2018 Crown Media United States, LLC | Photo: jeremy lee/ Alexx Henry Studios, LLC.

I’ve never really liked faux fall leaf garlands and living in California there aren’t too many options to gather real fall leaves that have any real color. So here’s my solution, fall leaves made out of old book pages! There’s something about the realness of the book pages that add a warmth to the project and the pages have a feel and weight not dissimilar to fall leaves. With a little breeze...they even rustle.

MATERIALSPaperback bookBrown butcher paperFloral or bailing wire3 fall colors of Design Master Colortool spray (I used a green, red and orange)Design Master Tint It in Gold Shimmer sprayTwineUtility knifeGlue gun

STEPS

Draw a leaf shape on the top page of the book. You can free hand it, print out a template from on line or trace a real leaf. Using the utility knife cut out the leaf. If you press hard enough you should be able to cut half a dozen leafs at a time.

Lay your leaves out in a well ventilated space. Start with one color of the spray and quickly spray a line of color along one edge of all the leaves.

Change to the second color and do another line of color next to the first.

Fill in the rest of the leaf with the third color. There’s no real rule with this, and each leaf will fill in differently.

Now spray over all three colors with the gold shimmer tint. This toes all the colors together and the gold adds a nice iridescence. Flip them over and do the same for the other side.

While the leaves are drying, make your branches. Rip the butcher paper to get two rectangular pieces.

Hand crumple and twist them into two long pieces.

Twist the pieces together to create a single armed branch.

Wrap the wire around the branch so it will hold it’s shape and lend it self to bending and staying.

Take your leaves and give them a little shape by curling the leaves and creasing the centers. For this you want to hang, use a hole punch to create a hole.