Pounding on some flowers and leaves!

I had a lot of fun making this project last week. I transferred a bit of the beauty of leaves and flowers onto a piece of white muslin by pounding them with a hammer.

Here is how I did it.

1. choose a nice leaf or flower (I found it worked best to do just one thing at a time) and lay it on a flat board.
2. Lay your piece of cloth over top and then use your hammer and pound on the cloth over top of where the flower or leaf is. The color will start to come through the fabric and so you can see where it is done.

3. After one piece is done then lift up the cloth. You will quite likely have to scrape a little of the pulp off of the cloth. Then you can keep repeating with something else until you get the "picture" that you want.

4. Use the finished product for your desired project. I glued mine on the front of a notebook, It is a sample craft for one that we plan on doing with the kids in our Wednesday night class at church. I have also heard of using this sort of thing to make throw pillows. I think it could also be neat on a hand bag or something like that. I do not know how well it could be washed. I hope to try it sometime however.

Some additional tips:

• I found it worked well to take some flowers apart and just lay the petals out in the shape you want.
• Don't use really squishy/watery stems, leaves or flowers. They can make a big mess and not look like themselves after they are pounded.
• Have fun and do some experimenting on sample fabric before making the finished product.