Bleached Fall Leaves

Why is it once you have an idea in mind sometimes it's very hard to find what you need. I've been to several craft stores looking for light shades of leaves other than yellow to go with the white pumpkins I have. I can find off white sunflowers and bundles of wheat, but no white fall leaves.  I tried painting leaves white, but I didn't like the results.  They just didn't look natural enough.


Some, like the ones pictured are available online.  Just google dried white oak leaves and a couple of sources will appear but once before I posted a web site but they've since stopped carrying them.

                                                             




So I decided to bleach my own to see what I could come up with.  Right now, leaves are hard to come by in my neighborhood.  The trees are slowly changing and not too many leaves have fallen. I did manage to collect a few just to see if bleaching them would truly work.  Most of the leaves I collected had turned brown.  One was still green. 

 I put the leaves in a cup of bleach in a pyrex dish and let them soak over night.

                                     The bleaching process was amazing to see.

You can clearly see the "skeleton" (veins) of the leaves  .   .   .   .

                                               Simply beautiful!

 
 I was quite pleased with the bleaching and the way the leaves changed.  The longer they stayed in the bleach the lighter they got (naturally)  .  .   .  but also, the more delicate they became.  I had to be careful removing them from the solution because they would come apart easily.

After drying them on a paper towel, I bundle them together with a piece of raffia and tied them on my white pumpkin.

      I love this look  .   .    .   .

and the variations in color and patterns.  I definitely will be bleaching more leaves.

Enjoy!