Skeleton Leaves

In this blog post we will be showing you how to make your own skeleton leaves. Well you might be wondering what a skeleton leaf is. Well, it's basically the inside structure of the leaf that supports it and also includes tubes that transport nutrients. There are two types of tubes: the xylem and the phloem. The xylem brings water from the roots up the phloem brings glucose down.

To make skeleton leaves  you need to gather some leaves from many different types of plants because you don't know which ones are going to work and which ones are not going to work. 

For the next step put them in boiling water with baking soda for one hour. This makes the water alkaline and it helps destroy the soft parts of the leaf that we don't need.

Then, put them in a little bit of water with a tablespoon of bleach for a few minutes. In our first attempt we put too much bleach for a few hours so some of them became white as you can see in the photo

Then, you need to start brushing it. You will notice that every time it becomes more transparent until finally you have got a skeleton leaf.

Finally, dry them carefully and put them inside a book so that they stay flat. This is what they look like up close.

If you get the white ones you can always dye them to make them look pretty and you can make your own pieces of art. Let me know in the comments what projects you are making with your skeleton leaves