Pepper Paints

Leaf Print Tablecloth

This is sort of how this project felt…crazy.

First off  you will need some flat leaves for this project. Next, you will need a tablecloth to decorate. A quick trip to my local thrift shop got me a gold tablecloth-perfect!  You will also need fabric paint. So,  a hopeful run down the one craft aisle at my grocery to find fabric paint and save me a trip to the craft store,  revealed fluorescent colors. Boo!! But then out of the corner of my eye, on the clearance rack, I spied the perfect Fall colors of permanent acrylic paint. Score again! I love when things are easy and work out that way! It doesn’t usually happen, so I was indeed happy with my lucky finds!

So I cleared the way in my kitchen to spread the table cloth on the floor. My kitchen is small and my floor isn’t spic and span-eww- and the tablecloth took up all the available floor space. That meant we were constantly walking all over the tablecloth–eww again-it also meant the material kept getting wrinkled up. I begin to get annoyed.

OK-next I spread out some newspaper and paper plates with the paint, leaves and brushes.

You will also need more newspaper and a rolling pin for this project.

Paint the underside of the leaf—the veins will give you a better print.

Then carefully put the leaf, paint side down, on the tablecloth and cover it with wax paper or a sheet of newspaper. Carefully so that the paint that is all over your fingers doesn’t get all over the tablecloth.  Then again-carefully, so that the leaf doesn’t slide around, roll over the top of the newspaper with your rolling pin a couple of times.

Remove the newspaper and then carefully peel your leaf back up-so that you don’t just drop it back down creating paint splots on the tablecloth. And watch were you throw your cover piece of paper-it has wet paint on it. Are you feeling my blood pressure rising??

Can you see that I was a little too invested in the product of this project!!! Part of it was this was a little messy for my kitchen floor and tables. Water colors or tempra are one thing but permanent acrylics are another. As Ginger walked over the wet paint back onto the wood floors and I am yelling, “Don’t step in the paint, wipe your hands off, don’t get that paint on my rolling pin, you’re wrinkling the tablecloth” etc… etc….  But surprisingly-they endured my fussiness  and the leaf prints came out great. We plan on using this on  our Thanksgiving table.

So the moral of this story is…if your looking to make this a really perfect looking tablecloth…do it your self. If your looking for a fun project for your kids…protect all surfaces and  shut your mouth. Allowing the kids to make it without being over supervised (and probably taking most of the fun out of it)!! It will look great either way! Another lesson learned!

Happy Thanksgiving!!

Tags: acrylic paint, art, craft, craft store, Crafts, fabric, fabric paint, fall colors, homeschool, Kids, leaf, leaves, Paint, recipe, rolling pin, table cloth, tablecloth, thrift, thrift shop, unschool, unschooling, wet paint