Fall Leaves Placemats–Perfect for Thanksgiving!

I can’t believe tomor­row is Thanks­giv­ing!! I’ve got to get busy in the kitchen putting things together for var­i­ous dishes like a turkey veg­gie tray, cran­berry jello salad, green bean casse­role, and mini pump­kin pies. But, I wanted to share one last project that would be per­fect for Thanks­giv­ing!

Fall Leaves Placemats

The fall weather was so per­fect when we were in Nebraska! And, there were still so many gor­geous trees & leaves around!

In fact, we went for many leaf-collecting walks! See?!

I wanted to pre­serve them, but have some­thing that would actu­ally be some­what use­ful. So, I decided on place­mats!

Sup­plies:

–lots of fall leaves, assorted 12 x 12 card­stock, Mod Podge, clear con­tact paper, paint brushes, scis­sors Direc­tions:

- put down some news­pa­per (to avoid get­ting Mod Podge all over the table)

- Arrange the leaves on the card stock as you like. I had mine hang off the paper just a bit. - coat each leaf in Mod Podge on both the front and back. I ended up just coat­ing the whole paper and every­thing. - Let that dry & move on to the next paper. I made 10! Like I said, we col­lected a lot of leaves!

- Once the pages are dry (it took about half the day), they will have a really cool texture–almost plastic-like. In fact, you could prob­a­bly just leave it at that. How­ever, I was wor­ried about the leaves hold­ing up over time. And, I was wor­ried that they might stain if stuff was spilled on them. So, we cov­ered them in con­tact paper.

- Just cut out sheets of con­tact paper, and sand­wich the mod-podged place­mats between the pages. - Just note though, that there will likely be some bub­bling around the leaves since they are raised slightly. I was a lit­tle dis­ap­pointed with that, but I’m not sure that it’s avoid­able. Any other ideas or suggestions?

Either way, I think they’ll be a nice addi­tion to our Thanks­giv­ing table and a spe­cial way to remem­ber our fall fun in Nebraska!I like the way the leaves peak out around the plates! Are there any fun ways that you’ve pre­served fall leaves?