One of my favorite things to do around different seasons is to make DIY projects that can add an awesome touch to the house or as a gift! For this Fall, I decided to make my own decor in the shape of leaves: one set of colorful leaves to sit on a table and another brown leaf with a family name on it to be hung up on a wall! I wanted to show my viewers and readers how easy it could be to add your own touch to your home decor and how getting into beginner woodworking projects is also as easy!
So, let's start with the trio of colorful leaves first!
To make these leaves, all you need is some plywood scrap pieces and a jigsaw or scroll saw! I grabbed some pieces of scrap plywood laying around and first sketched out the leaf shape that I wanted. No need to go too crazy here by attaching an image of one to the piece of wood and using it to cut a template. Leaves are all unique enough and I think that free-handing this part makes this your own even more!
Once you have the shape I liked, I glued my pieces of scrap together, ensuring that each piece of scrap could fit the drawing I made. For your reference, I glued two pieces of plywood together, each being at 0.75" thick, to ensure the pieces were beefy enough to both stand out and stand on their sides. From here, it's as easy as cutting out the shape with your tool, sanding down the edges, and painting on your preferred colors! That's it!
And now on to the wall piece!
This was another easy one for the books! All it takes is two pieces of plywood: one for the backing and one for the leaf on top. I would recommend experimenting with different stains and even different pieces of wood to make the colors pop to your liking! To make this piece, it's pretty much the exact same steps! I first drew the shape I wanted if a leaf on a piece of plywood (this time focusing a little more on the detail, because of the size of the piece), and then I stained the leaf on top.
I then cut the piece of plywood as the backing to a size that would fit the leaf (with a little room around the borders) and added a light stain to the plywood in the back to keep it a natural color. I glued the leaf to the center of the plywood and then wood burned the name I wanted into the center. I have a laser printer that I used for this wood burning, but you could use any of a handful of wood burning techniques to burn in the family name! Once this was all complete, I just added a layer of polyurethane to the entire piece and was all done!
I would love to hear your thoughts on these projects and any home decor projects you do for the seasons in the comment section! As always, thanks for reading!