How To Preserve Leaves With Beeswax

This popular method preserves leaves by dipping them in melted beeswax. It’s an excellent way to capture the beauty of fall leaf colors—red, orange, yellow, green, and gold—for use in crafts and decorations. You can also preserve wildflowers with this method.

Also see how to make a bowl with beeswax and pressed flowers here.

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How to Make Beeswax Leaves

Preserving our favorite fall leaves in pure beeswax is a simple way to capture those beautiful colors and make them last long after the season is over.

In addition to fall leaves, you can also preserve seed pods, flowers, stems, and other plant leaves using this method.

Beeswax, an all natural product created by honey bees, has so many uses including crafts like candle making, kitchen uses like beeswax food wraps (see the tutorial), as shoe polish, and it is found in many beauty products.

This shows 15 Creative and Practical Beeswax Projects in case you have leftovers after preserving your leaves.

While the beeswax-dipped leaves look beautiful on a mantle or table, I like to hang mine from branches to display them in front of a window. See How to Make a Decorative Fall Leaf Mobile here.

I’ve linked to products on Amazon but always recommend checking local sources for items like beeswax.

Love crafting with natural materials? You might enjoy Naturally Crafty—see it here.

Notes for Hand-Dipping Leaves in Beeswax

While fun to do, this can get messy if you don’t set up your work area correctly.

• Use freshly fallen leaves not dried out leaves—they will crumble during the dipping process.

You will be melting beeswax in a double-boiler on your stove top. The double-boiler is just two pots or a pot and bowl. Double-boiling produces a gentler heat than you would get if the beeswax was place directly in a pot on the stove.

• Dedicate the bowl used for melting the beeswax to crafts only.

Because this can get messy and it is not easy to completely clean a bowl used for melting beeswax, use a bowl that is heat proof and can be dedicated to future crafting.

• Place the baking tray lined with wax paper beside the stove.

After dipping each leaf in the melted beeswax, which only takes a few seconds, you will be placing it on the wax-paper lined baking sheet to dry.

• Wear clothes you don’t mind getting beeswax on: it doesn’t wash out.

To avoid drips, have your tray right by your double boiler.

Beeswax is harmless but takes some work (scraping) to remove from surfaces once dry.

If you do get drips, you can use a hair dryer to re-melt the beeswax and wipe if off your counter.

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~Melissa the Empress of Dirt ♛