Make Fall Inspired Jelly Leaves

Turn clear glue and food coloring into translucent fall leaves you can stick on a window.

 

Materials you'll need

• Clear glue
• Liquid dish soap (per color batch)
• Food coloring (yellow, orange, and red)
• Small paper cupcake liners
• Popsicle stick
• Small paintbrush
• Leaf outline template (printed)
• Large clear plastic bag or sheet

 

Step-by-step tutorial

Step 1: Pour 2 tablespoons of clear glue into a paper cupcake liner.

Step 2: Add 1/2 teaspoon of dish soap and 1 drop of food coloring on top. Mix with a popsicle stick until fully blended and smooth. Repeat this in separate liners to make yellow, orange, and red versions.

Step 3: Slide your printed leaf outline page inside a large clear plastic bag so the outlines show through.

Step 4: Dip a small paintbrush into one of the colored glue mixtures and paint inside a leaf outline, filling it in completely. Blend two colors within a single leaf (like red fading into orange) for a more realistic look. Repeat for each leaf shape, mixing colors freely across the page for variety.

Step 5: Let the leaves dry completely and undisturbed until they're firm and no longer tacky. This can take several hours.

Step 6: Once dry, gently peel each leaf off the plastic.

Step 7: Stick the leaves onto a window and watch the sunlight shine through them.

Learn more

This trick works because craft glue is a polymer — a chain of molecules that starts out as a liquid but locks together into a flexible, see-through film as the water in it dries up. A drop of dish soap breaks up the glue's stickiness just enough so your leaf peels off the plastic in one piece instead of tearing. The food coloring gets trapped inside that hardened film, and it only lets certain colors of light pass through it. That's why your leaf glows like stained glass when the sun shines through it.

Hooked on watching color glow when sunlight hits it? Turn leftover crayon bits into Recycled Crayon Suncatchers next, melting shavings between wax paper for that same window-glow effect using crayons you'd otherwise toss.