Autumn Leaf Dishes for Fall Decor

Since Fall is my favorite season, I am always drawn to anything Fall-related at thrift stores. Acorns, squirrels, pumpkins- you name it. So, it’s no surprise that these wooden leaves stopped me in my thrifting tracks. Of course I needed these autumn leaf dishes, and I knew exactly how I wanted to jazz them up.

Normally, I’d grab up wooden dishes like these and paint them! Goodness knows I’ve done it many times before, such as with these painted wooden pumpkins…

But, it just so happened that I’d just seen a Michaels ad for a craft product that I hadn’t ever used before. And I decided that these wooden leaf dishes were the perfect upcycling guinea pig.

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Crafting with Foil Flakes

Ok, so my plan was to use these foil flakes from Michaels on the wooden leaves. I’d never worked with gold leaf before, but it made (punny) sense to try it on something leaf-shaped!

Aren’t they lovely? In all those metallic shades of autumn, with some tourmaline hues thrown in? They weren’t available in any of my nearby Michaels stores, so I ordered them online.

Anyway, before I got started with the gilding flakes, I cleaned off the grease pencil price first. Then I planned to paint the base of each leaf dish in a matte gold before doing anything else.

Why? Well, for a couple of reasons. One, if I did a sub-par job with the foil flakes, then a gold surface would peek through instead of bare wood.

But perhaps more importantly, the gold paint gave me an outline to follow when I used the gilding adhesive! Once the gold paint dried, I layered on some adhesive and let it “dry” for nearly an hour.

Allowing it to dry for a while was in the instructions- trust me!

Gilding the Autumn Leaf Dishes

Next, once the gilding adhesive had dried, it was VERY tacky and ready for the foil flakes. So, I sprinkled them across the sticky gold surface.

When using these gilding flakes, it’s definitely important to use special adhesive to get that tackiness!

Then, I burnished the flakes with my fingertips, pressing all the flakes firmly against the tacky surface. Pressing and smoothing down, until the entire surface had been foiled.

After that, I used a fairly stiff stencil brush to remove excess flake from the gilded surface, until it was smooth.

I actually think I overdid this step and lost some of the shimmer and shine. But, it *was* my first time using gold leaf or foil flakes, so I cut myself some slack.

Lastly, I gently dusted off the autumn leaf dishes with a soft, dry cloth before using the varnish that came with the adhesive.

I used two coats of varnish to protect the foiled surface and that was it! My decorative leaves were all done.

Autumn Leaf Dishes for Fall Decor

This is one of those projects that is hard to photograph. The foil flakes almost have a holographic look and change color depending on the light, the angle, and even the camera I used.

But they really are lovely in person, truly capturing the essence of late Fall in November. And now that I’ve tried foil flakes on something, I’m definitely interested in trying them again!

I hope you enjoyed my autumn leaf dishes! And trust me when I tell you that they are SO much lovelier in person. If you’ve never tried gilding flakes or foil flakes before, think you will now?

Also, don’t forget that I have even more Fall decor ideas (and Christmas, too!) in my book, “Crafting with Flannel”! It’s available for online purchase from Amazon, Target, Barnes & Noble, and Walmart.

And if you enjoyed this upcycling idea for autumn leaf dishes, then you may also be interested in this fall sign that features painted leaves, as well!

Craft on!

S

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