Hapa Zome Leaf Prints

A few weekends ago my friend's 9-year-old daughter wanted to share a new craft with me. She called it Japanese Leaf Printing but that was all I was told except that we first needed to go for a walk to find our leaves.

Intrigued, I joined the family in putting on coats, hats and gloves (it was a wet and windy day) and went out in search of suitable leaves. I was instructed to look for nicely shaped leaves that were fairly fleshy but not at all waxed. So, grass, nettles, dock leaves, bracken were good; ivy, holly, gorse were bad although I did sneak in some gorse petals as I was keen to try some colour.

Back at home we gathered together our leaves along with a chopping board, a couple of sheets of card (this need be nothing special so bits of an empty cereal box would work fine), two squares of white fabric (ours were cut from an old sheet) and, most importantly, a hammer. Using the chopping board as our base we then layered our other items beginning with a sheet of card, a sheet of fabric, our leaves arranged in an attractive fashion, the second sheet of fabric and, finally, the second sheet of card.

The fun then began. Using the hammer you just pound the pile of card, fabric and leaves. Do so in such a way as to ensure you apply equal pressure evenly across all areas where there are leaves but be careful not to disturb the layers of card, fabric and leaves as you pound.

I have to say that, at this point, I was fairly sceptical but once all the hammering was over I was pretty amazed to see the results revealed. Carefully remove the top layer of card and fabric and then, even more carefully, remove the now pulverised leaves.

Not only do you get leaf shapes imprinted as the chlorophyl leaches into the fibres of the fabric, but some leaves also revealed the most intricate details. Passing a hot steam iron over the finished results is supposed to help fix the image but, this being all natural, the colours will fade over time. Also, the bottom layer of fabric seems to pick up the leaf definition better than the top.

My friend's daughter gave me the top layer to bring home as a souvenir. The first image is of a bracken leaf with some hints of the gorse petals I snuck in at the top. The second image is of a nettle.

I was so impressed that I showed a friend.  We were in my kitchen and it was dark outside so I demonstrated using the herbs from the windowsill. The thyme and parsley left my friend speechless (and also smelled great when being hammered!)

A sprig of thyme

Coriander (left) and Parsley (right)

I've since found out that the Japanese name for this type of printing is Hapa Zome but that many cultures around the world have been using this method for extracting dye or colour for centuries. Other examples I've seen on the internet are much more vivid so I guess you could be a lot more forceful with the hammer than I was. Just make sure you have a very solid foundation such as an unbreakable floor.

Do give it a go!