Several years ago now my friend Debbie showed me the ancient technique of preserving leaves using vegetable glycerine. Since then I’ve enjoyed preserving a lot of leaves, stitching into them, being creative with them.

Cotinus (smoke bush plant) leaves have kept their colour and markings.

I love looking into the details of each leaf, its uniqueness.

Last June my Mum died. Remembering her, her creativity, her patchwork, and her love of the garden, I gathered leaves, preserved them and did some patchwork with them.

I can’t claim this creative piece is mine! Done at a Joy of Leaves workshop ;-)

I’m offering a Joy of Leaves workshop on 30th July this year, at Gloucester Summer School.

We’ll also be ecoprinting on paper, another exciting technique.

There are a lot of interesting workshops on offer on this summer school, you can find information on their website - www.spanglefish.com/gloucesterartsand crafts

I run a workshop which I usually call The Joy of Leaves.

One of the things we do in that workshop is use preserved leaves which I provide, as well as take home leaves soaking in diluted vegetable glycerine, ready to keep and use.

Here are photos of just some of the work people have done.

Featured posts:

Lizzie's Blog:

Preserving Leaves