Autumn leaves, acorns and fir cones

Hello my fellow taggers!  I got a bit carried away this week with the Autumn leaves theme – I have made a tag tree with a total of 13 Autumn leaf tags!

Most have been inspired by chance finds, gifts, or experiments!  It has taken me all afternoon and evening to photograph them. I will start with my favourite tags:

Yesterday Paul and Bailey brought me back some amazing red and green leaves from their walk through the Arboretum . . . I knew exactly what I wanted to do with them

I pressed them overnight and wrote on them this morning.  I had been thinking of the song “Forever Autumn” firstly because it has been on the radio a lot, but also because the lyrics go so well with this theme; the first couple of lines go perfectly with my End of British Summer-Time Tag last week:

 “The summer sun is fading as the year grows old,

And darker days are drawing near,”   and . . .

Like the sun through the trees you came to love me,

“Like a leaf on a breeze you blew away,”

I had been doing some calligraphy for another project, so I wrote these words straight onto the leaves with a Berol Itallic marker pen.  It was not the ideal writing surface, and I wanted to use gold, but the result was not too bad – it’ll be interesting to see how the writing changes as the leaves dry.  I have pressed some more leaves so will try this experiment again on properly pressed leaves (maybe next year!).

For this tag I used two leaves that I pressed last year, they are stuck onto some of my tie-dye fabric and outlined with tiny beads, (86 I think) all sewn on by hand.  I embossed the stiffened fabric first and made tiny stitches so it looks just as neat on the back!  You can just make out the outline of 2 leaves in tiny metallic stitches.

The next tag is made completely from scraps from previous experiments which were still on my table!   I wrote the words “Wisdom is in the trees” two weeks ago while making my owl tag – I was just testing my gold pen!.

 

 
On the back I was testing the glitter paint and drew a leaf.  There are other scribbles and marks too!  The oak leaves were a gift from Paul and Bailey last week.  I had a thick sediment of gold ink at the bottom of my water pot so used it to paint the leaves and acorns.  My scrap of fabric didn’t quite fit all round the tag,  so I filled the gap with a scrap of red.  The “October” was made with my new calendar die set which arrived yesterday!

This tag is made from the waste of the October die cut.  The letters are covered with skeleton leaves from my stash.

These tags are made with the same method, this time I have stuck pressed leaves behind.  They look really effective when held against the light but it doesn’t work in a photo.

These leaves are painted onto silk, cut out and stuck to brown paper (which I then painted with glitter)

I hope I haven’t bored you with this extra long post!  I would love to know which is your favourite.  I really appreciate all your kind comments.  I’m off to bed now, but I’ll be looking in the morning to see what the Autumn winds have blown off the trees this week!

           

Enjoy rustling through the leaves, acorns and conkers this week!

Bye for now.

Jane xx