www.MyAspenTrees.com

This project has been a little over a year in the making.

  One of my favourite things about Colorado are the ASPEN Trees! I love them!!

Last year I collected a bunch of Aspen leaves when Clare was out here to surprise her brother Joe, and she collected a bunch of leaves to turn into a art Christmas Present for her mom. However I was too busy and never got around to preserving them properly. So a year later and this time I was determined to create this project I had been viewing in my mind for a year. I had even bought the grey paper last year....

So this fall, when the leaves started to fall, I started collecting them, and I painted the trunk of the tree's.

 My plan was to use a LOT of paint, and give it more of a 3D effect!

 Ignore the washer, we just don't have a lot of space in our 1 bedroom apartment!!

 Then I tried 3-4 different methods to preserve the leaves.
The first I tried was soaking them in a mixture of glycerin* and water.  *bought at a pharmacy

 The second time I tried spraying it with Acrylic Spray bought at a craft store.

Then, one night when I didn't have time, but was just so curious to see what it looked like, I placed some on it, just to see!

I also tried the classic - "put them between the pages of a heavy book" method.

The 4th Method I tried was just putting them in a pocket of my sweater... why did I try this? I accidentally left one in there from one of my collection days, and it preserved really well!!

Here are a bunch all my leaves!!

Then one night when I had the time I used glue dots to stick the leaves to the page. This was my first one:

 Halfway through the 2nd one Nick said he liked it better more sparse, so I left it like this:

 Then I ordered some frames online. I got these frames from target.com for 5.99 each. They're 12x12 shadow boxes. It was on clearance!!!

 I hadn't planned on putting the leaves at the bottom, but as soon as I started putting them together I realized that was a great way to use the space!!!

 I absolutely love how they turned out!!! I was planning on giving at least 1 of them to my sister-in-law for Christmas, but I'm now thinking I may have to make 2 smaller ones! I still have some leave left so it shouldn't be too much work!

What do you think? 

Anyone else thinking I need to do a summer one with green Aspen leaves and a winter one with snow on a bare trunk?