Grab your coat from the closet, go in search of skeletons
Ma Nature is your friend, not your adversary. A good case-in-point is a nifty D.I.Y. arts & crafts project that uses tree leaf skeletons. Ma Nature can serve as your source for craft materials that are free for the taking. This is in stark contrast to the labor-intensive alternative strategies where you risk life and limb to make your own.
My advice to you is to let Ma Nature do all of the heavy lifting. This is the time of the year to take a nature hike and do a close scrutiny of the forest floor. With but a little bit of searching, you will be able to find skeletonized tree leaves laying there at your feet. Go ahead and gather these up because they have the makings of a quite nifty arts & crafts project.
For gosh sakes, don't go surfing the World Wide Web! The people there will steer you to no end of the tutorials on how to skeletonize leaves yourself through the use of dangerous boiling water and even more dangerous chemicals. They advise you to don dishwashing gloves. Woe be to the unwary person who should happen to breathe in the toxic fumes that come wafting out of the pot of chemical-laced boiling water.
Skeletonized leaves are already lying out there on the forest floor. You need not endanger your health in the use of dangerous chemicals whereby you transform leaves into skeletons.
You can use the skeletonized leaves au naturel, or you can have some extra fun by dipping them in tiny vats of food coloring.
These crafty objects can
then be attached to the window glass in your home. There will be no end to the enjoyment that ensues thereafter.
Neil Garrison was the longtime naturalist at a central Oklahoma nature center. His email is atlatlgarrison@hotmail.com.