Several years ago when I was working in the Czech Republic I was given a leaf rose at one environmental education centre. It was very pretty and I took a photo to remind me to have a go at making them.

Whilst touring Australia, I spent a lovely morning at the Spirit of Play Community School. The children in the P1 class were really into making things with the leaves such as the example above which was made with a big nasturtium leaf. The children also used them as cups to collect water.

I like to mess about with leaves – they are so beautiful with so many creative possibilities at this time of year for children. In the photo above, I simply put the leaves in size and then pinned them together with a hawthorn thorn.

In my neighbour’s garden there is a beautiful maple tree. This was an opportunity to experiment as a lot of leaves fall into our garden. Luckily, if you go onto YouTube there’s loads of videos all showing you how to create maple leaf roses.

Typically though, none answered my questions such as:

• Is a particular size of leaf best? Most were being created with huge leaves. (big ones seem easiest to use and less fiddly)
• Is it good to order leaves in size and to work in ascending order of size when creating a rose? (yes)
• Can you use other leaves? (maple leaves are good for starters)
• Do the leaves need to be dried first or are they better picked and rolled fresh? (I discovered it was the latter)

So I just got on and experimented with my freshly collected leaves. After several mis-trials, I began to get the hang of it. Basically you fold a leave in half, roll it up loosely. Do this with a few more and then wrap a few whole leaves around the outside.

The videos all used florist’s wire to tie the leaves underneath. I liked using elastic bands as I found that once the maple leaf roses had dried, the bands could be removed and the rose would stay all rolled up. I think the stems of the maple leaves could work too but would be more fiddly for children. All in all it’s a lovely activity and worth having a go.

This post was first published in October 2017.