Autumn Craft ~ Zendoodle Leaf Garland

Today I was suppose to work on my homework...

but I spend the morning play...with Autumn leaves instead, LOL.  Yesterday while waiting for my son's school bus I was enjoying the wonderful Autumn breeze, the scent as I was being rained upon by falling leaves!  I had my phone out while checking my FB when I was drawn to these big leaves falling, so I clicked my camera on and started snapping...I captured a shot as a large one was falling into my hand.  While looking at it, I got the idea to make a Autumn leaf garland.

But it wasn't til this morning when I found 

the time to go for a short Spirit walk up our drive to find some perfect leaves...which wasn't hard with all the leaves that are on the ground these days.  Then it hit me...I had read an article about dipping Autumn leaves in wax as a way to preserve them...and I thought, waxing them would help them be sturdier for threading.  And then I thought, why not Zendoodle on them first then dip them and string them!

So, I spent my morning doodling on leaves

instead of doing my homework...but oh was it fun...and relaxing.  It's been a hard week with all the home inspections and such and the waiting game is just soooo hard. I had to do something to get out of my funk and into a creative space...and yes, once I did, I was able to go right into doing my homework.

So this is what I did, 

I took out my white gel pen and a silver one too...though I wasn't fund of the silver one as much as the white, and I went for it...I doodled and doodled and doodled.  Before I knew it they were all done and I laid them out on the table to see my creations....Loved them!

I then started hunting for my wax...

believe it or not, the garage is still full of boxes, being unsettled for these past months stinks, cos half the time I'm digging through boxes cos' I don't know where anything is.  Okay...found the wax but not my little wax melting pot.  I wasn't about to ruin another pot, so I decided I was going to use a pie tin.

I put a chunk of wax on the tin

place the tin in a pan 1/2 full of water and turned it on Medium...it was perfect the wax started to melt and so I kept it on a low simmer to keep it hot.  I dipped each leaf one at a time and placed them on a sheet of wax paper.  Oh...and by the way, while dipping I was eating some chocolate...and you guessed it a piece fell in to the wax, I scooped it out but you can still see some specks of it :)

Once cooled, I took a thick thread 

and a needle and began to thread each leaf into a garland.  I then chose to have the little ones dangle from the larger ones...too cool...my first Zendoodle leave garland and Autumn craft for the season!

What did you create today?