The leaves have just started changing here in Denver, but up in the mountains it’s a different story. I am hoping that this weekend we might have a chance to take a drive to the foothills to enjoy all the gorgeous colors of fall.
While it will still be a while before the leaves start falling in our neighborhood, some colorful leaves are already falling inside are home thanks to a quick and easy fall leaf garland that I made for our kitchen window.
If you’ve been reading my blog for a while, then you probably know that our home has very modern architecture, including a lot of long, thin, horizontal windows. These windows pose some pretty big challenges when it comes to window coverings, but when it comes to seasonal decorating they are full of possibilities. In fact, I decorate the long window in our kitchen so frequently, that I now just leave a dozen small, clear Command hooks stuck to the top edge of the window casing all the time so that I can switch out my window decorations on a moments notice.
This fall, I decided to bring autumn’s falling leaves inside by creating a vertically hanging garland in our kitchen window. I started by selecting scrapbook colors in shades of yellow, gold, teal and blue {the same papers that I used to create the fall canvas art that sits on the sideboard in the kitchen.
In order to make fast work of cutting out all of the leaf shapes, I borrowed my mom’s Sizzix die cutting machine and her Jim Holtz Alterations leaf dies. It’s really about time I get my own Sizzix, considering how I often I borrow my mom’s and how much Beckett loves helping me use it!
Since I would be hanging the leaves in our window, I wanted the patterned paper to be visible from both sides, meaning that I needed to cut the leaves in pairs that could be placed back to back {white side of the paper in, colored side out}. Cutting pairs of leaves required that, for each paper pattern, I cut one set of leaves with the white side of the paper against the die template, followed by cutting a second set of leaves with the pattered side of the paper against the die template {as illustrated above}.
Once I had cut pairs of leaves from all of my pretty papers, I stacked them all up and prepared to assemble my garland.
To create the garland, I simply used some brown and white bakers twine, and an Elmer’s scrapbooking glue stick.
I tied the baker’s twine to one of the clear Command hooks in the kitchen window to measure the length of twine needed. Once I had cut one piece of twine, I then used that piece to measure and cut 11 more equal lengths of twine. Before moving on to the next step, I tied each piece of twine around a Command hook, creating a loop that I could easily slide off of the hook {and later slide back on}.
One by one, I laid the pieces of twine out on my kitchen table and selected four pairs of leaves {I decided to always start with a yellow leaf at the top, then gold, teal and blue}.
After laying out the leaves along the length of the twine, all I had to do was glue the pairs of leaves together with the twine in between. I applied glue to the back of one of the leaves, then laid the twine down the center of the leaf and pressed the other leaf on top {sandwiching the twine between the leaves}.
It didn’t take long at all to glue leaves to all twelve pieces of twine.
With all of the strands of garland complete, I simply hung the garland up on the Command hooks using the loops that I had pre-tied.
With the garland hanging in the window, it really creates the feeling of falling autumn leaves.
The falling leaf garland is a subtle addition to the seasonal decor in our kitchen.
When the bright sunlight streams through the kitchen window in the late morning, the leaves are silhouetted against the trees outside. And at night, the leaves become beautifully backlit when viewed from outside.
It’s fun coming up with new ways to decorate the long thin windows in our living room and kitchen for each season. Here’s what I’ve displayed in the windows for spring & summer, Halloween, Christmas, and winter.
I still had a lot of leaves left over after making my garland, so I decided to use the rest to decorate our kitchen table and sideboard. But when I laid the leaves out of the table, they just looked a little, well…flat. So I borrowed yet another fun tool from my mom – a small paper crimper.
My mom has had this paper crimper for probably 20 years, and it doesn’t have a brand name anywhere on it, but you can find a similar Fiskars brand paper crimper at most craft stores or on Amazon. All I had to was place a stack of leaves {I did about 5-8 at a time} between the two rollers, then turn the handle until the leaves had passed all the way through.
Beckett wanted to get in on the action and ended up crimping almost all of my leaves for me.
He was so proud of himself when he saw the big pile of leaves that he helped me create! I love that this kids loves to help with my projects.
Crimping the leaves not only added texture, it also curled each leaf a bit, adding even more dimension.
