If you aren't lucky to have any real maple leaves on your sidewalk or in your yard, go to your favorite search engine and type in maple leaf clip art or maple leaf patterns. Once you find one you like, save it to your computer and re-size it and print it out on your printer. Don't have a printer? Use your computer like a light box. Take a sheet of thin paper or tracing paper, put it over your monitor, and using a blunt pencil gently trace the design.

Now you can use it as a pattern to trace around, or a stencil.

Once you have a leaf pattern you like, you can stencil it on walls, wooden items, trays, mailboxes, drapes, flags, or banners.

Needed:

One medium cleaned hardshell bottle gourd

Acrylic paints in fall colors and green

Paint brushes

Gold or copper colored glitter.

Optional: Woodburning tool or Sharpie Marker

Cardboard or plastic to make a stencil/pattern

Clear acrylic spray

Pencil

Kneaded eraser

First decide how big your pattern should be by holding it up to your gourd.

Then trace around the leaf shape with the pencil. It may help to stick a loop of masking tape behind the stencil to help hold it in place. Go slow to allow for the curved surface and get the best tracing you can.

Adjust the design and erase stray marks.

Be sure to overlap a leaf or two to make it look more realistic.

Dip your brush into 2 colors at once and paint in the leaves. Paint some yellow, some orange and some brown.

After the paint dries, use a liner paint brush to paint in the veins of the leaves.

Let dry and then trace lines with glue bottle and sprinkle on glitter.

Paint vines with liner brush

Using woodburning tool or Sharpie marker, trace around each leaf being careful where the overlap is to make sure you trace the leaf that is supposed to be on top. Sign and date the bottom with your paint or marker or wood burning tool.

Let dry and then finish with clear acrylic spray.

If your gourd will stand alone, great. If not, use a vine wreath to set your gourd on.