Real fall leaf magnets

(Oct 18, 2012) I’ve been pondering how to preserve fall leaves, I tried Mod Podge, they curled up. I thought of contact paper, but it doesn’t seal that well… I was talking with hubby about my conundrum when he came up with a BRILLIANT idea! So I tried his brilliant idea after nap time this afternoon, when Nico got up I explained to him that he could pick pretty, still soft, not curled up leaves and thanks to papa’s idea we would be able to keep them forever! He was happy and out we went to collect, after that was done we took a 30 min swing break. We then came in and gave it a try, we had to act quickly, the leaves were starting to curl up!

So I fired up my hot/cold laminator on the hot position (may work cold, haven’t tried, let me know if you do ) Placed all the leaves in my laminating pouches (I used 8 1/2″ x11″, 3 mil, flexible, ultra clear) and gradually I brought the top down while pressing down a bit, made sure all the leaves were flat and not overlapping so I could leave an edge while cutting, then I slowly pushed it in the laminator. Pay attention, it will sometimes get stuck, so be sure to pull lightly when it comes out, if you see like it wants to stay stuck. Another tip, cut the stem end, the thicker tip attached to the branch, as that seems to stay stuck more. While laminating all his leaves, I was thinking this would be a great gift for Alex’ family abroad, it’s flat, not really breakable and totally Canadian! Hmmm, but it’s too big to be used as a bookmark… how about a magnet! Wait it doesn’t really feel like Nico had anything to do with it… Oh! White finger print on the leaf! Bingo, we got our gifts set!

So we got some nice red maple leaves and got finger/thumb printing. Nico agreed but after a few wanted to quit, so I had to bribe him with chocolate (1 piece now, 1 piece after the job is done) for him to finish the prints, lol. I used a foam brush with white acrylic paint and I helped since paint and leaves are slippery together. The paint dried quickly and that was good cause the leaves were starting to dry too! We laminated those quickly as well, cut them leaving an edge so not to unseal them. I used self sticking magnetic sheets that I cut stripes out of, to stick in the back (about half the height in length and a little finger width).

And voilà you got a great personalized real fall leaf magnet that will last forever

Options:
1) If the child is a bit older you can have them used silver or gold markers to draw something on the leaf instead of the thumb print.
2) You can also make a graphing game like Teach Preschool did.

If you do this, we’d LOVE to see a photo of it. Email it
to us or post it on our Facebook page. We’d love to do a Facebook album, a Pinterest board and a page of your creations

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