Easy Painting

I had a baby shower on Saturday, hosted by my friend Vanessa. Vanessa is always complaining that she doesn't have enough art on her walls, so I wanted to make her something as a thank you gift.

I got this gorgeous frame from my grandmother-in-law (she was throwing it away!) and I knew it would match her furniture, so I decided to use it. I also knew I wanted to do something with leaves, since their apartment is very green and natural.

I was going to paint a leaf, or stencil a leaf, or use a leaf as a stamp, but I decided to just cheat and stick a pressed leaf directly to the canvas.

I pressed leaves from outside our apartment building under a pile of cookbooks -- who says you don't need cookbooks any more? Can epicurious.com do this??


I picked my favorite leaf from the pressings and painted it black-brown. Hard copies of newspapers are handy. Can latimes.com do this??


When the leaf dried, I mod-podged it to a canvas I had painted green with my new friend, the palette knife.


I used heaps of Mod Podge, but it still dried clear.


My little mixed media art project.