Amanda is the the creator of a lovely blog site called Wit & Whistle. Based in North Carolina, Amanda not only writes an amazingly inspirational blog full of her own beautiful photography, recipe ideas and wonderful home-made gifts, but in her spare time she also designs and makes her own range of hilarious and witty greetings cards (available to purchase online). 

Recently, I stumbled across one of her wonderfully original gift ideas and thought it was well worth a mention. Here is Amanda's make your own pressed leaves picture, a perfect gift for any keen gardener.

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How to... Make A Leaf Picture

I’m sure most of you have pressed leaves before, but if not it’s super simple...

Just gather the prettiest leaves you can find, sandwich them in sheets of wax paper (you can also use tissue, layout, tracing or water colour paper). Then stack up your heaviest books, and tuck the leaves into the pages of the bottom book. I usually leave them in the book stack for a week or so, but you can leave them as long as you want. It might be a nice mid-winter treat to open a book and find a leafy surprise. The colours fade a bit, but the pressed leaves retain a bit of their former beauty. Then simply frame.

Wit & Whistle

 *All instructions and images are taken directly from Amanda's Wit & Whistle blog

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These frames are also using a Manila/brown paper stock, but its your personal preference. You can always try water colour paper which normally comes in a nice off white, or even Kraft/parcel paper if your leaf is really dark green.