While on our beautiful fall visit to Utah and Arizona, we saw gorgeous foliage. Some leaves I recognized and others I didn't. All I knew was that I needed to collect as many fallen leaves as I could for keepsakes. I stuffed them between the pages of our books in hopes to preserve them. When we got home and finished our unpacking (my favorite part of vacationing -- NOT), I remembered our colorful souvenirs and a sweet little handcraft from one of my Wild + Free books. P.S. If you've never heard of Wild + Free, please do yourself a favor and check them out. It's a wonderful homeschooling community (though homeschooling is not a requirement) that encourages families to keep the spark alive in your children through nature, reading, learning, and creative play.

Dipping my leaves in 100% organic melted beeswax was the perfect solution to preserving the color and shape of my leaves. Thankfully, I thought to press them first because it made the dipping process so easy. We dipped some sugar maples that I didn't press and while pretty, they didn't dip as evenly as I would like. 

After melting the beeswax over the stove in my designated beeswax pot (yes, you should have one if you plan to continue crafting with beeswax because it's really hard to clean), we dipped away. Evangeline had so much fun carefully dipping the leaves. One thing to note, is the leaves should be submerged and coated the first time you put it in the wax. We re-dipped some that we noticed weren't completely coated and the result was a not as pretty double-dipped waxy leaf (photographed above). I was curious about the leaves we collected as I didn't recognize them immediately. After going through some of our leaf/fall books, I discovered they are Linden leaves. Pretty neat, huh?

While there are still some fallen leaves on the ground, please go pick a few, dip them in beeswax, and either make them into a garland, scatter them around the table or house, or use them as a bookmark, but definitely preserve a bit of fall before winter gives way.

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LEAF DIPPING IN BEESWAX

Ingredients:

• 100% Organic Beeswax (I found mine on Amazon)
• Designated pot (either small crock pot or small stovetop pot)
• Leaves (pressed first for a few days in between book pages to flatten them out)

Directions:

1. Warm a couple of bars of beeswax over low heat on the stovetop (or in your crockpot) until the wax is melted
2. Dip leaves until completely submerged and try avoiding need to dip them again to prevent a thick waxy finish
3. Lay them out on wax or parchment paper to dry out (dries within seconds)
4. Make them into a garland or scatter them about to admire your preserved bit of fall