Turn Fallen Leaves Into A Creative Addition To Your Fall Floral Arrangements

The next time you are raking leaves in the yard and admiring the rich golden yellows, fiery oranges, and burning reds, imagine if you could bring them inside to enjoy for longer. One creative way to capture those colors involves using them for floral arrangements. While you can find many creative ways to use fall leaves in your decor, this project turns colorful foliage into decorative flowers for tablescapes and wreaths. The YouTube creator Irina_Lifehacks highlights her bold blooms made out of purple and green leaves, but you can experiment with maple leaves, oak leaves, and other flexible foliage from your yard. 

To start making your own unique fall florals, your first step should be to wander around your yard after leaves begin to fall. Select colorful, pliable leaves, avoiding any that are rotting, badly torn, or riddled with insect damage. But you shouldn't take leaves from outside and expect them to hold up on their own. Apply beeswax or glycerin to the leaves to preserve the color of your dried fall leaves for decor that really pops. Along with your preferred leaf-preservation supplies, you'll need a hot glue gun or craft adhesive and wooden floral picks for attaching the finished flowers. 

Although the creator Irina_Lifehacks utilizes a wineglass to carefully layer leaves into a bold rosette shape, you can use any cup or bowl. To mimic her design, place the edges of the leaves along the rim of the glass, folding them so their pointed ends lie on the outside. A dab of glue helps bind the layers together. Keep adding more layers until you have a flower about the size of your hand. Then carefully pull the leaves off the glass to see the finished look. You can then glue the finished bloom to the end of a wooden floral pick, making it easier to incorporate into a bouquet.

Another way to repurpose freshly fallen leaves in the autumn into flowers is by folding them into delicate roses. Take one leaf, preserved in beeswax or glycerin, and fold it in half horizontally then again vertically. Roll that first leaf up tightly, then grab another leaf. The second leaf gets folded horizontally and wrapped around the first one. You can continue to wrap leaves, which are first folded horizontally, to build your "rose." Keep the inner leaf "petals" tightly folded, then wrap the outer layers a little more loosely to resemble an opening rose. A little tape to hold the outer layer together and a few small twigs or floral wire and you have a makeshift flower for floral arrangements. You can also play around with larger rose blooms featuring leaves added more loosely around the base of the inner petals.

These creations are a decorative way to style your dining table with a more homespun autumnal centerpiece. Pair them with collected twigs or branches for a fuller arrangement. You might also incorporate your decorative leaf flowers with vibrant mums, pairing yellow leaves with purple mums and red leaves with yellow mums. For a rustic door hanging. combine cornstalks, colorful ears of corn, and a few fall leaf flowers. You can also use this DIY method to learn how to decorate with leaves all year round. Instead of waiting to transform colorful autumn leaves, gather fallen leaves from your shrubs, houseplants, and trees in the spring and summer to create bold floral designs for your table arrangements and more.