How to marble nature – feathers, sticks and leaves

When one thinks about marbling they may conjure up images of bright colours, stunning patterns and pretty crafts created as a result of an interesting artistic process. Although it sounds lovely to craft-lovers like me,  it’s the inconvenience of having to get the materials, understand the processes and clean up the mess that’s been a constant barrier as to why I hadn’t tried it yet.

I decided to bite the bullet after I found this Marbling Kit (affiliate link) in a craft shop the other day. The barriers dissolved when I realized it contained almost everything I needed to marble nature. It gave me the colours, alum mordant, methocel and the complete instructions to follow to ensure I was doing it correctly. My problems were solved. Pitty it didn’t come with a cleaning fairy!

Despite that, I was thrilled that it had been made so much easier for me.

What you’ll need to marble nature:

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• Sticks, leaves and feathers
• A marbling kit, we used this one
• Shallow tray
• Skewer, comb or blunt knife
• Ammonia (you may need this. I didn’t use it though)

How to marble nature:

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It’s best to stick to the instructions on the marbling kit you bought. I could mention how we did it here but they give such great instructions in the kit that I feel there’s no need to. Also, if you get a different kit, the instructions may vary slightly.

The instructions are written to marble paper and fabric. I followed the instructions for paper. I soaked all the nature items in alum and then let them dry. I’ll admit that I was concerned it wouldn’t work.  Paper is significantly different from feathers, sticks and leaves but thankfully the kit we used did a great job!

As you can see the nature items marbled beautifully and the end products were everything we imagined.

I do have to admit that marbling with nature is messy. I’m not sure there’s any way around that barrier, but it was nothing I couldn’t handle. The process, the end products and the smiles on my children’s faces when they pulled the feathers and leaves out covered with bright colours and stunning patterns was well worth having a little bit of clean up at the end of the day.

So, if you haven’t tried marbling with nature yet, I’d really encourage you to buy a marbling kit and give it a go!

There are affiliate links in this post.