Preserving Autumn Leaves

Awesome Autumn Activities for Adults with Special Needs

Pressing autumn leaves is as easy as lining folding a piece of kitchen roll in half and gently laying a leaf inside. Next, to flatten the leaves, you can place the folded paper towel and accompanying leaf between the pages of a heavy book, setting something heavy on top (can just be a stack of other books), and wait a few weeks. 

If you’re going to use the leaves for activities, be sure to get a variety of shapes and colors.

Preserving Autumn Leaves with Wax

Instructions:

1. Collect autumn leaves in different colors such as green, orange, red, and brown. Set the leaves aside for a moment. 
2. Turn your iron onto the highest setting without steam.
3. Place the thicker bath towel on your ironing surface. 
4. Lay down a piece of wax paper onto the towel. 
5. Lay as many leaves as you can fit onto the wax paper without overlapping them.
6. Place a second piece of wax paper onto the leaves that you’ve laid out. 
7. Set down your thin bath towel on top of the second piece of wax paper.
8. Iron your leaves for 25 seconds.
9. Lift the thinner towel and flip the leaves and wax paper over (keeping them together).
10. Iron again for 25 seconds. 
11. Let cool.
12. Take the top towel off. Slowly and carefully peel off the top layer of wax paper. Then gently peel the leaves off the second piece of wax paper.

Quick leaf preserving hack: if you happen to have a soft paraffin wax machine for your hands, you can actually just use this to coat the leaves instead of using the wax paper method.

About Stephen’s Place

Stephen’s Place is an independent apartment community for adults with developmental and intellectual disabilities, located in Vancouver, WA (7 minutes from Portland, OR).

If you have a loved one with developmental or intellectual disabilities, who is looking for a community to live in, please contact us for more information. 

Stephen’s Place is a private-pay apartment community due to our state-of-the-art amenities and programs. We are a nonprofit and do not profit from our community. We are private pay because we spend more than some housing communities to ensure that our residents are comfortable and can safely live their lives with independence and dignity.