Scavenger Chic

Boiled Eco-Prints, Easy Craft Project

• By Joan
• April 1, 2020
• 4 Comments

– Boiled Eco-Prints –

Here is an easy and fun project you can do with the kids (or by yourself) and hopefully you have all the supplies on hand.  Boiled Eco-Prints!  Haven’t heard of them?  As of Saturday, neither had I.   That kinda tells you how easy this project is, cause today I’m an expert.  Not really, but I will tell you how I did it.

First things first.  Gather your supplies:  You will need a large pot.  The couple of Youtube videos I watched both went out and bought a thrift store pot just for this purpose.  Not sure what is wrong with the pots I already have, I’m only boiling vinegar and water.  Which brings me to the second and third things you’ll need, vinegar and water.  Two blocks of wood small enough to fit into the bottom of your large pot.  Some rubber bands or wire or both, a bunch of rusty bits and paper (10 to 20 pieces) cut to the size of the blocks of wood.  Back to those Youtube videos, they used watercolor paper.  Don’t have any of that on hand either so I’ve used a couple sheets of drawing paper and the best way to describe the whiter piece of paper is it has the feel of cardstock.  Can’t really mess this up, I’m just experimenting.

You can find Youtube video instruction here and here.

My oldest son is working at home for a few weeks.  While he has an office in his home, it doesn’t have a door.  Not easy to get work done when your 1 year old keeps wandering in and wants to play.  That’s where I come into play, I’m storing another desk of his in my garage which would make a great temporary office in his bedroom (which does have a door).  He told me I didn’t have to make a special trip over, maybe he would see us next weekend, but I showed up anyway cause you never know how tight the quarantine will get.   That was on Sunday and sure enough, by Monday we were pretty much told to stay home.

So now you’re saying, what the heck does that have to do with leaf prints?  Well, besides the desk, I came armed with a baggie and went shopping in his back yard for leaves and flowers.  See, it all makes sense.

If you are allowed, go outside and gather a variety of leaves and flowers.  You may be looking at this pile and saying I don’t have any of those, but alas, don’t worry, most of these didn’t work so well. 🙁   Out of this entire pile the leaves that worked the best were the ones in the lower right hand corner which are actually a weed.

Lay down one of your blocks of wood followed by one sheet of paper, your leaves and flowers arranged artfully, prettily and skillfully and then cover with one more sheet of paper.  The leaves and flowers will print on both sides.

Start again…another sheet of paper, more leaves,  paper,  paper, leaves, paper, paper, leaves…finishing with your last piece of wood.  Keep stacking until you’ve used up all your paper and flowers.  Notice that there are 2 clean pieces of paper for each bunch of leaves or flowers.

A couple cherry tree blossoms and a weed I pulled out of the rocks at my son’s house.  The weed ended up being one of my favorite prints.  The cherry tree blossoms were barely noticeable.

I was hoping these Magnolia petals would transfer their colors onto the paper.  Eh…not so much.

The same goes for this pretty pink flower, instead of a pink transfer, it mostly turned to mush.  Have you noticed a trend here, I didn’t have much luck with the flowers? Keep experimenting with all different types of leaves and flowers and you’ll soon see which kind of leaves work best.

By the time you finish stacking, you should have a nice neat little package.  It doesn’t matter if some leaves and stems hang over the edge.

Wrap your flower package tightly with wire, rubber bands, clamps…whatever will hold it securely and still fit in your pot.

Use enough water in a large pot to cover your stack of papers.  Add one cup of vinegar and bring to a boil.

These are the rusty bits that I’m going to add to the water.  I don’t know how much they’ll change the color of the water but when I’m told to add rust I’m all over that.  Hey, if you have leftover railroad spikes you may want to try a coat hangar or wine rack.  Just thought I’d throw that out there. 😉 

Packet all submerged.  My largest rusty thingamajig does a great job holding everything under water.  You could also use a brick or large stone.  Bring to a boil then simmer for an hour and a half to two hours.

**You could also tint your water with red onion skins, yellow onion skins, a couple splashes of balsamic vinegar, turmeric or any other items you would use to get a natural dyed Easter egg.

Times up! Drain the water and run cool water over the block.

Time to open him  up and see what we’ve got.  Peel off the stems and any large leaves and rinse any remains off with water.

I did get leaf prints on every page though some were not as defined. I believe this was the cherry blossoms.

Lay flat to dry on paper towels, or napkins if you’re running low.

This was Nandina, from my own backyard, and violets.

This was the weed I plucked out of my son’s rocks and a couple cherry blossoms.  Don’t even notice the blossoms but the leaves made a nice print.

I also loved the way the ferns turned out.

Now what do you do with your beautiful new art work?   You may need to iron your creations to get them to lay flat, but this is the Nandina with a couple sheets of scrapbooking paper, it’s now a notecard.

Or, my favorite leafy weed is now artwork for the wall.

When the leaves come out on my trees, I would love to try  an oak, maple, sweetgum and crepe myrtle leaves.  If your leaves are earlier than mine maybe you could tell me how they work, otherwise I may just have to do another experiment.

Stay sane, stay home, stay inspired.

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