Autumn arts

Its such a beautiful time of year, I love getting out in the garden and heading to the river-side for walks, and can never resist collecting conkers or colourful leaves as we go. With my big girl on holiday this week we spent a rainy afternoon pressing the leaves we had collected into some air drying clay. I had both white and terracotta but you could use either and then paint them after they are dry. We carefully cut around the leaf shapes and made a hole near the stems so we could string them together. We also made some sycamore keys for extra interest then left them overnight to dry. These leaves are beautiful strung up in a window with ribbons or used as gift tags. I made a wire ring and used red thread to tie the leaves on, adding fabric strips on the back with a glue gun to keep them in place, this was a fiddly process but I love the finished wreath. Air drying clay is fragile and can be difficult to mould but is perfect for slab work and flat projects like this.