Beeswax Leaves

I am a lifelong admirer and collector of fall leaves. Sometimes I still find them tucked in the pages of a book I read years ago, or in the back of my flower press from the previous autumn. I had a friend in college who would dry them and hang them up in a string above doorways, and I did that for a long time until my kids got older and life got busier. I heard about beeswax leaves recently through my friend and fellow blogger, Taryn Kae Wilson of Wooly Moss Roots, and since beeswax and leaves are a couple of things I love, I knew I had to give it a try! I started collecting leaves with a renewed purpose, and my kids teased me about it, but then they started giving me special leaves they found to add to the project.

The same friend who used to make the dried leaf garlands made me this beautiful wooden plant press, and it has gotten a lot of use over the years. It came in very handy for this project, as I layered in the leaves I brought home over the last couple of weeks.

I keep an old saucepan in a box with all my scraps of beeswax, and it’s great because you can just heat the pan whenever you want beeswax and just let what’s left over cool and stay in there for next time. Another bonus is that it makes the whole house smell delicious.

I read on one website to not let the beeswax get so hot it boils, so I melted the candle scraps down on low heat and turned the burner off. Then I carefully dipped each leaf in until it was submerged half way up the stem.

I let each one drip over the pan for a few seconds.

Then I laid them on a piece of foil to finish cooling. It was such a thin coating of wax, this didn’t take long for them to dry.

I hung some in my windows on fishing line to let the light through, I hung some from my kitchen ladder rack, and sprinkled the small ones around my table centerpiece of gourds from the garden. They are very fun to put around the house for fall decorating, especially when the leaves have all fallen off the trees outside and it starts to get drizzly. From now on, I am definitely going to want to cover every beautiful leaf I find in beeswax.