Leaf skeletonization is a long and painstaking, but very interesting process! Under the influence of water, air and chemicals, the pulp is separated from the veins, forming an openwork contour in the form of a leaf.

Processing methods

It should be said that skeletonized blanks can also be purchased in craft stores or online. There you will find leaves of trees that cannot be found in your city: magnolia, Canadian maple, cork, bamboo.

But you shouldn’t give up on the process of making skeletons at home - it’s much more interesting to watch how a leaf turns into an openwork plexus of veins in your hands. In addition, this method is more economical than buying ready-made leaves.

Skeletonization is based on several methods, used depending on how many sheets you need, their density and rigidity.

This technique is used if you need to skeletonize 1-2 leaves. You can process larger quantities of workpieces dry, but it will take a lot of time - 1 sheet is cleaned for 15-20 minutes.

All you need is a brush to beat out the pulp. Pay attention to the bristles: buy brushes only with natural bristles. And the tougher it is, the better the skeletonization you will perform.

Place the light leaves in front of you and start brushing them. This will separate the flesh from the veins, leaving only the frame.

In the same way, you can process dried leaves from a herbarium, but you will not end up with a stringy piece, but simply an openwork piece.

The natural way

Leaf skeletonization occurs in a similar way in the natural environment—hence the name of the method.

• Pour water into a jar, place a leaf in it, close the lid and leave it like that for a month. Monitor the process carefully - you may need less time.

• When will he leave? top layer sheet, remove the workpiece and rinse it under running water from mucus.

• Carefully separate the pulp with your hands or using thin, medium-hard brushes.

You will be left with some cute blanks in your hands. Skeletonization is completed by drying in a dry place for 2 days. This is a good way to process ficus leaves and physalis fruits.

Wet method

Wet skeletonization is used if you need to prepare several leaves at once.

• Place the leaves in a pan of water and add 2-3 tablespoons of a chemical solvent such as Mole.

• Boil the leaves for several hours. The average cooking time is 2-3 hours for medium-hard preparations.

• After cooking, remove the leaves from the pan and rinse with water in a bowl.

• Using your fingers, rubber gloves or a toothbrush, begin to scrub the pulp away from the veins.

To learn more about wet skeletonization, watch the following video.

Carefully place the straightened pieces in a dry, well-ventilated place and leave to dry for 1-2 days.

Skeletonization of leaves using chemicals is similar to the wet method. The difference is that you don't need to cook the preparations.

Just fill the leaves with white and water in a one to one ratio. You can remove the workpieces when they turn white and begin to lose pulp.

During drying, all workpieces must be placed under a press so that they turn out flat and even.

The success of separating the pulp from the skeleton depends mainly on the stiffness and thickness of the leaf. The leaves of the following plants skeletonize more easily than others: poplar, plane tree, linden, oak, blueberry, birch, aspen, ficus. Experiment with cherry and currant leaves.

Also think about decorating the skeletons: painting them, laminating them, additional coating.

Painting skeletonized leaves can be done at several stages:

• in the process of separating the pulp from the veins, whiteness and potassium permanganate will help you;

• after the final drying of the product, use watercolors or gouache, spray paint cans.

Coat the finished product with varnish or a fixative to make it more durable. Use sparkles, rhinestones and beads for decoration.

Types of needlework

Skeletonization of leaves - only initial stage. Thanks to the openwork appearance blanks began to be used to create a wide variety of do-it-yourself products.

Below you can see several popular uses for skeletonized leaves.

Leaf paintings

They draw twigs or other patterns on the finished background, glue blank sheets - the result is a wonderful picture.

In addition, skeletonized sheets often act as a canvas for images themselves. And not only images - recently such a type of needlework as artistic carving on leaves has appeared.

Texturing

The leaves are also used to add a special texture to some materials.

In quilting and patchwork techniques, skeletons are sewn into the fabric. And masters of wool felting roll the blanks onto the products so that the pattern of the veins can be seen from the inside.

But the most amazing invention is pressing leaves under a press into paper. Thus, skeletonization contributes to the appearance beautiful sheets for crafts and photo wallpapers with skeletons inside.

Scrapbooking and decoupage techniques were among the first to take note of skeletonizing leaves as an economical way to obtain new working material.

Decoupage with openwork blanks is used for dishes, lamps, and furniture. And leaves, carelessly glued to cards and albums, add airiness to the product.

Jewelry with pieces of skeletonized leaves has recently been rapidly gaining popularity. Almost every craftsman considers it his duty to try creating pendants by pouring skeletal leaves with epoxy resin.

The following technique is also common: an openwork sheet is coated with gold or silver plating, fixed with a fixative varnish and used as an independent pendant.

Skeleton leaves: master class

Try using skeletonization for simple master class for decorating beer glasses. All you need: skeletonized blanks, glue, clear varnish, red and yellow glass paints, glasses.

• Cover one side of the skeletons with glue and glue them to the glasses in random order.

• In the spaces between the leaves, paint the leaves with paints. Leaves drawn dotted will look like real carved blanks.

• Coat the glasses with a fixative varnish and leave to dry.

These fall-themed beer glasses make great holiday gifts. Especially in October, when the Beer Festival traditionally takes place. Moreover, they are created to lift your spirits on a dark autumn evening.

The technique for descaling leaves from trees is quite simple. But the result is incredibly impressive. Thin translucent blanks are ideal for most types of needlework, from scrapbooking to creating voluminous compositions of dried flowers. Below we'll look at how to skeletonize leaves and a couple of options for using them.

Methods for skeletonizing leaves

Let's start with what leaves are suitable for skeletonization, because some are too soft and simply tear, while others, on the contrary, do not want to give in to the work of the master. The leaves of maple and sycamore are usually the most pliable. Oak or birch leaves are perfect, you should try walnut and alder; ficus and linden look very beautiful. More decorative and, of course, spectacular blanks from leaves of mango, magnolia or rubber tree will have to be ordered.

As for the process itself, there are several ways to skeletonize leaves at home. The most labor-intensive of them is dry, when using a stiff brush directly green leaf Gradually beat off and peel off the greens.

For those who are patient, the soaking method is suitable. To skeletonize leaves, simply pour a jar of water and place the blanks there. After about a month, you can take out the preparations and carefully clean off the resulting mucus and softened greens. Chemicals used include bleaches or mole-type pipe powders. The most common method is considered to be skeletonizing leaves with soda. But you need to find not baking soda, but a more aggressive one for washing.

Let's look at the step-by-step process of skeletonizing leaves with baking soda, since it is the easiest to find.

1. Place baking paper on a glass baking dish.

2. Measure out three-quarters of a glass of soda (use regular baking soda).

3. Next we need to bake the soda to convert it from bicarbonate to sodium carbonate. Baking time is about half an hour at a temperature of about 200°C.

4. Pour two cups of water into the pan. First we need to prepare about a kettle of boiling water.

5. Pour the prepared soda into it and as soon as the mixture boils, reduce the heat to low and add the rest of the water as needed.

6. It takes about one and a half to two hours to cook this leaf soup.
7. Next, take out the leaves and use a cotton swab to remove excess moisture.
8. Using a brush, gradually remove the remaining pulp.
9. The last step of skeletonizing the leaves is to paint everything with white.
10. These are the snow-white sheets we got.

Skeletonization of leaves: crafts

So, we have learned how to skeletonize leaves, now we will consider several options for using this decor. The material works great with the decoupage technique, namely paired with special glue and varnish.

Skeletonized leaves are those leaves from which only veins remain. Soft fabrics leaves (scientifically “epidermis”) are removed in various ways, and what remains is the so-called “skeleton” - an openwork mesh of veins. In this lesson I will show and tell you how to make such leaves at home.

Skeleton leaves can easily be purchased at a flower salon, florist shop, decor store... You can also order it in an online store. It's fast, simple, convenient. Another plus is that the store sells skeletons of trees that do not grow in our area.

For example:

Leaves of ficus religiosa or tree Bo, Bodhi, Banyan; peepal (Peepal or Pippal):

Leaves of the rubber tree or Hevea brasiliensis:

Magnolia leaves:

Mango leaves (Mangifera indica):

However, buying leaves in a store is not always possible and not for everyone. And the choice is limited to only two or three types. It's much more fun to make skeletons yourself!

There are a lot of articles on the Internet on the topic of skeletonizing leaves, but alas, all these articles are essentially just reprints of the same foreign master class. And not the best. Why not the best?

Firstly, boiling leaves in washing soda is mentioned everywhere - not the best good option, since not everyone can find this powder in their city. I didn’t find it either, although I searched for a very long time.
Secondly, the effect of this soda is very doubtful. Readers of the site often write to me and tell me that they can’t do anything with soda!
Some people try to use instead washing soda food, but it especially does not give an effect. Yes, some leaves may become skeletonized after cooking, but here even just boiling in hot water without any additives - for soft, loose leaves, such as chestnut, this is enough.
It’s generally funny to talk about soaking in green tea – it’s complete nonsense.
Thirdly, there are means that are much more effective and affordable.

So how do you actually skeletonize leaves effectively?

There are several ways:

Dry
Wet
Natural

Dry method

The dry method is good when you urgently need one or two skeletonized leaves. You will be tortured to do more, since one sheet takes about 15-20 minutes of vigorous action.

The method seems simple - take a brush and beat a leaf with it. But! Having bought a special brush with a comfortable handle and worked with this brush on a leaf for about ten minutes, I was very upset - nothing worked for me! And all because the bristles on the brush were made of synthetics, and also not hard enough.

So remember - the brush should only be made of natural bristles, the bristles should not be too long. Please note - the stiffer the bristles, the better! You can buy such a brush at the market or at a hardware store; they are usually intended for cleaning clothes or shoes. By the way long handle You can also attach it yourself.

We take very fresh leaves, without spots or holes, lay them out on a piece of newspaper and hit them with a brush. You will break the soft tissues of the leaf, only the veins or skeleton of the leaf will remain! The method is ideal for leaves of maple, sycamore, ficus Benjamin, poplar, ivy, etc.

You can also take press-dried leaves. In this case, you will not get a skeletonized leaf, but simply an openwork one - also interesting option. And here the brush may not be very hard.

Natural skeletonization method

The leaves are remarkably skeletonized in a natural way - that is, nature itself creates such leaves, you just need to notice them in time and pick them up.

How does this happen? And this is how the leaves get wet in the rain, under the snow, lie on the damp ground, they are trampled under heels, and so they naturally turn into a net. I usually collect these leaves when the snow melts. Also, the leaves can be “eaten” by some insects:

In order not to rely on nature and not wait for a suitable leaf to come across, we arrange natural skeletonization of the house. Pour plain water into a jar and put the leaves in it. Close the lid and leave it alone for about a month. As a rule, a month is enough, but sometimes even less time is needed. Then we take out the leaves and watch how the leaf pulp comes off. If the leaf has softened enough, rinse it under running water with three fingers to remove all the mucus.

I experimented with a Benjamin Dunetti ficus leaf that had been in water for a month. After that, it exfoliated, and I simply removed the film from it, which covers the sheet on both sides. The result was a very soft and delicate skeletonized leaf (although initially the ficus leaves were very hard). The structure resembles that of a dragonfly wing, right?

This is also a great way to skeletonize physalis. These are bright orange lanterns on a branch; florists love to use them to make bouquets of dried flowers. Physalis

In principle, flashlights themselves become skeletonized, naturally on a bush (from rain and snow) - you just need to not miss the moment and collect them in time before they rot. Or you can also put them in water and after a couple of weeks get ready-made “skeletons”.

Wet method

If you need a lot of leaves, it is most effective to skeletonize them using the wet method. Fill the leaves with water and add “Mole” powder (pipe cleaner). In general, any aggressive household chemicals. There is a lot on the Internet. You can take soda, of course, but I don’t guarantee the result.

So, throw two or three tablespoons of powder into water and cook the leaves for several hours. An hour is enough for maple leaves, two to three hours for sycamore leaves (and other hard leaves). Moreover, the smaller the sycamore leaf, the longer it needs to be cooked.

Next, take out the leaves and wash them in a bowl of water. Use three fingers to remove the pulp. Rubber gloves with pimples also help. If the pulp does not come off, cook it some more. Hard leaves need to be brushed with a toothbrush wooden board. At the same time toothbrush constantly moisten it in water. Let's look at this method in more detail.

Which leaves are good at skeletonization? These are, first of all, maple and sycamore leaves. Poplar leaves (black or silver), birch, linden, aspen, oak, blueberry, walnut, alder, and ficus leaves are excellent.

Chestnut leaves are very delicate, but they can also be skeletonized. You just need to straighten them directly in the water, and then take them out already straightened, prying them with a saucer or a wooden spatula.

After descaling, I leave the leaves to air dry. And then I just iron it with a warm iron. You can immediately put it under a press, or immediately iron the wet leaves with an iron - it’s whatever you want. You won't be able to move very flimsy leaves - you'll tear them or crush them. Let them dry first in a straightened form - the same way you took them out of the water, and then transfer them wherever you want.

Whitening

To make the leaves white and transparent, you need to fill them with half and half water and bleach (“White” is fine). Wait 10-15 minutes (depending on what leaves you are processing). When they turn white, take them out and wash them under running water. You get a white transparent sheet.

You can also beat such leaves with a brush. Or you can skeletonize them by boiling them with “Mole” and then bleach them - it will turn out like the finest white lace - very beautiful.

Skeletonizing leaves is a simple process, but it requires patience and accuracy. All we need is leaves (it’s better to collect them in the fall, then they are denser), baking soda and food coloring.

1. Place the leaves in a saucepan and cover them with soda (it is recommended to dilute 1 teaspoon of soda per 1 liter of water)


2. Pour water, put the pan on the fire and cook the leaves for 20-30 minutes



3. Then carefully take the leaf out onto a paper napkin and use a brush or sponge to remove all the pulp from it. This stage is the most important! Proceed carefully and slowly. You can also remove excess moisture using a paper napkin.

Take out the leaves one at a time, after cleaning one, move on to the other.
4. To keep the leaves even, they can be placed under a press, for example, under a stack of books

5. To give the resulting skeletons) beautiful color, use food coloring. Dilute it in water and dip your leaves in it, then blot with a paper napkin and dry.

Option 2
Method from Nata
Here's some advice I found on one forum:
The leaves should be dense, leathery, for example, magnolia, poplar, cocculus, etc. Otherwise, they will turn into mush. You can take autumn yellow leaves - they are more persistent. Ivy leaves are perfectly skeletonized. To do this, take fresh, not dried leaves and boil them in the “Mole” solution for 30-40 minutes, then rinse them in water and use your hands, never with a brush, to free the leaves from the slippery mass remaining after cooking. As a result, skeletons remain that can be bleached in “Whiteness”.

Option 3
Skeletonization of leaves by Marat Ka.

Option 4
The laziest way

We need leaves that are whole and neat: without holes or “sores.”
It’s good if they have already had time to lie down. Now in November the leaves on the ground are just right.

For the photos I chose a photogenic leaf. Something more suitable, but less attractive, was used.

Then, we need some container and chemicals: bleach, bathroom and toilet cleaners.

Immerse the sheet in the liquid and wait.

How long to wait... depends on the concentration of “corrosive” substances in the chemicals used.
The only suitable spray I had was some kind of "Cif" spray.
Periodically I sprayed the leaf with a new portion of the chemical. And it became transparent in about a day.
The skeleton was thoroughly washed under the tap, dried with a towel and placed under a press.
Minimum effort. But the smell of the finished sheet is not very good. But maybe it will fade?

I won't show you the finished sheet. I accidentally burned it with an iron. What can I say? It was too transparent... :)

Option 5
Skeletonization of Physalis!


To make such beauty you only need: dried physalis (preferably last year's), soda, water. Make a concentrated soda solution of 0.5 liters. water 5 tablespoons of soda, cook the physalis in it for about 20 minutes and carefully brush off the pulp with a toothbrush or bristle brush... Voila... Dry and our beauties are ready)

You can paint them. From a spray can or with writing dyes (in solution)

Can be cut into segments and dried = flower)

Option 6
Well, I finally found another method from Elena Perestoronina. For me, it’s quite tiring, but that’s a personal matter...

Original post and comments at

I really like the decorations in the base. natural materials, and today I suggest you learn how to make colored skeleton leaves. But first, look at how you can use skeletonized leaves in decoration.

Skeleton leaves can be decorated with sparkles and beads, they can decorate any flower arrangement or become New Year's decor. as well as an original accessory.

To make such earrings, in addition to skeletonized leaves, you need to use.

Skeleton leaves are used in various surfaces.

Using skeletonized leaves you can create a unique ornament

A rose made of skeletonized leaves will be the highlight of your home decor.

Garland of skeletonized leaves

So, let's start making skeletonized leaves. To do this, you need to collect leaves with identified veins. You can involve children in the cooking process; they will choose the colors. Despite the fact that today you can buy artificial skeletonized leaves, many people prefer to make them themselves because it is cheaper and more interesting. You can use any leaves for this.

So, in order to make colored skeleton leaves you will need the following materials:

• Leaves
• Baking soda
• Toothbrush and brush
• Food coloring
• Paper towel

How to Skeleton Leaves

First, collect the leaves. Try to collect leaves with rough veins, for example oak, maple. However, you can try other leaves.

Fill a small saucepan with 2 cups water and 3 tablespoons baking soda. Place the fox in a saucepan and leave to cook for at least two hours, adding baking soda periodically.

When the leaves darken, you can remove them from the heat. Remove the leaves from the pan and cool. Now you can start skeletonizing.

Remove the leaves and use a toothbrush to carefully remove the pulp, then use a brush to finish removing the pulp from the leaves. Do everything carefully so as not to damage the skeleton of the leaves.

If you want to make a transparent sheet, then place it in a solution of bleach and water. Leave it for now green will not disappear completely. Let dry.

If you want to make colorful leaves, place the leaves in a solution of food coloring.

Now you know how to make colored skeleton leaves. You can use them for various purposes as a separate decoration or in compositions. Good luck in your creativity!