Thursday, September 5, 2013

Fan Folded Leaf Tutorial

Fan folded leaves make excellent decor for your holiday displays without the dirt and free loading creepy crawlies that can sometimes accompany what you could otherwise find out in the yard. I found this tutorial on the Better Homes and Gardens website so in all fairness I need to at least give them credit for their efforts.

fan folded leaves from BHG - go there if you must
BHG's tutorial instructions are obscurely written in my opinion and difficult to follow so I've simplified things for you here right down to providing the template so you don't have to become a member of BHG just to get it. I know, bad Kellie but believe me, this will save you a lot of frustration.


fan folded leaf template
I've sized the original template down by half of what it was. The finished leaf will fit better on your tables and shelves without being unbelievably large. Below is my down and dirty visual tutorial. Wish I was better at making these look prettier but at least it gets the point across.


I used a pice of decorative paper in fall colors so I wouldn't have to paint the paper first. Feel free to go crazy with the pens, ink, and paint if you so desire though. 

I did learn something from putting this together. When I turned my leaf over to the white side I noticed that I didn't have that same ugly seam down the center like I do on the colored side. To fix this, refold the folds the other direction (the mountain folds will become valley folds and vice versa) and that should solve that problem. Hope you enjoy this. Cheers!

7 comments:

  1. Hi Kellie - just popped over from the Free Digital Stamps blog and was blown away by your tutorial. These leaves are gorgeous and thank you so much for writing up the tutorial and sharing with us. I can see lots of goodies here as I write this so will definitely be joining your blog.

    Karen x

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  2. These are so pretty, Thank You for sharing! Wonderful!!!!

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  3. The leaves look great. Thanks for telling everyone how you achieved them.

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  4. Thanks for a great tutorial. Did you fold in increments of 1/4 or 1/2 inch?

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    1. Hi Linners,

      I didn't measure my folds. I folded the paper in half and then I flipped the paper over and folded each half in half and kept repeating that way until the folds were as small as I wanted them to be. Hope that helps. :)

      Kellie

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  5. Thank you so much for the leaf template.

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  6. thanks. BHG's instructions really had me baffled.

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Greetings!

Each and every comment adds a bit of cheer to my day. Thank you so much for popping over. I hope to see you again soon.

~Kellie