'Leave' It All Up To You

The myriad of beautiful colours in the autumn/winter leaves is a highlight of this season. Colourful leaves may be even more attractive than flowers. Choosing which leaves to preserve is a great activity for the children and, being closer to ground level, they often have a better view.

To make a great indoor display from autumn leaves, it helps if you dry or preserve the leaves first. Luckily this is easy to do and here are a couple of basic tips for pressing and saving leaves.

1. Choose leaves that are relatively flat, not curled.
2. Look for leaves that aren’t spotted or bumpy.
3. Don’t be afraid to try leaves in various stages of changing colours.
4. The drier the leaves, the better they press. More supple leaves, like magnolia and rhododendron, are good candidates for silica gel preserving.

Silica gel is that white powder that looks like salt. It comes in tiny packets in everything from shoe boxes to vitamins to keep things dry. It is great at absorbing moisture and it speeds up the drying process considerably. You can find silica gel in craft shops like Spotlight or, if you’re like me, you can save and combine all those tiny packets of silica gel that come your way.

To dry leaves...

1. Select leaves that are still somewhat moist and supple. Silica gel will allow you to dry slightly thicker leaves too.
2. Place about a 3cm layer of silica gel in the bottom of a microwaveable dish.
3. Place the leaves flat on top of the silica gel leaving space between the leaves and the sides of the dish.
4. Completely cover the leaves with another 3cm layer of silica gel.
5. Place the uncovered dish in the microwave oven and microwave at medium for about 2 minutes.
6. Let it cool and remove the leaves.

It’s hard to give exact times for this because it depends on the size of the dish, how many leaves you have in the dish, how much silica gel is used and the power of your microwave. In my kitchen, 3-4 leaves in a microwaveable, recycled meat type pan with 1-2 cups silica gel takes about 2 minutes on medium.

Julie