whats the easiest way to print on a leaf?

May 21, 2007 4:22 PM

I need to recreate a birthday invitation that was done about 30 years ago, consisting of silk screened letters done on a large leaf, Is there a better, cheaper, more manageable way to accomplish this now? I need about 200 pieces done.
posted by kanemano to technology (13 comments total)

An actual leaf? A silk one?
posted by robinpME at 4:31 PM on May 21, 2007

If there is any detail to the letters (small type, etc.) then silk-screening is still probably the best way to go.

If there isn't too much fine detail, you could try a stencil, but if you know how to silkscreen, or know someone who does, I still think that is the way to go.
posted by extrabox at 4:54 PM on May 21, 2007

font and type size have not been decided on yet, but it will be kept simple, date and time and a one line quite, maybe not much more
posted by kanemano at 5:03 PM on May 21, 2007

A custom rubber stamp could do it for you. I don't have an inside line of which of the many places out there is best, but someone here might.
posted by wemayfreeze at 5:08 PM on May 21, 2007

An actual leaf? A silk one?

an actual leaf, kind of a tree of life type deal.
posted by kanemano at 5:18 PM on May 21, 2007

it probably wouldn't be cheaper, but it's more modern and has higher accuracy: have you considered having this done on a laser cutter? Laser cutters can also be used (at lower power and higher speeds) to do etching, even on thin layers. I haven't seen this done on leaves yet, but have seen some very cool fruits and fruit peels.

If you're affiliated with or willing to chat with university shops, industrial design or arty or architectural firms, or rapid prototyping companies, you may find good contacts to get it done as a side project...
posted by whatzit at 5:34 PM on May 21, 2007

Also: if you can get your hands on a Gocco you should be able to silkscreen it yourself pretty easily and (relatively) cheaply.
posted by wemayfreeze at 5:36 PM on May 21, 2007

Screen printing is actually the fastest and cheapest way to do that. If you can supply the leaves, a local shop would probably be able to do it no problem.
posted by bradbane at 6:47 PM on May 21, 2007

I designed a leaf invitation a few years back. We were only doing about 70 of them, so the calligraphy was hand-painted with gold ink via brush, each with the name of the person the invitation was for. The leaves were then baked in an oven to age them, and wow did that bring out a nice colour contrast between ink and leaf.

I limited the amount that needed painting by having the event details in a printed paper booklet that was wrapped in the leaf. Once the invitation had been through the oven, the leaf held its wrapping shape, and basically became a parcel for the invitee to unwrap.

Since you are trying to make a replica of something however, your design options are presumably based on the original and therefore more limited. Do you have a photo of the original?

In your case, I would suggest experimenting with ink-jet printing directly onto the leaf. Eg making an envelope with a cutout on one side smaller than the leaf but larger than the text, thus the envelope will carry the leaf through the feed. (Also consider an inkjet that prints on CDs, as this means it is designed for a flat, thick feed. They're only $150)

Since you probably won't want to buy a (probably four-digit pricetag) inkjet that can print opaque colours, and leaves are typically a dark colour, (and get darker as they age) I suggest looking into stamp embossing powder from a craft store (and it's available in gold! :), but you'll probably need to prepare the leaf first with a spraycan varnish or some other method to ensure that the ink remains wet long enough to get it to hold the embossing powder. (The temperature required to melt the powder will almost certainly be too much for the leaf if you need to keep it green)

An advantage of inkjet printing over screen-printing is, of course, the same as hand-painting - each invitation can be custom, meaning each invitation is personalized with the name the of recipient.

In short, experiment. Try things. Spend a few hours in various kinds of stores looking into various products that could be used or abused. Working out how to do it is the fun part of the project :)
posted by -harlequin- at 7:42 PM on May 21, 2007 [1 favorite]

This isn't a solution I like or recommend, but I figure I might as well mention it - transparent water-decal sheets. Because the decals start out as paper-like sheets, you could take them to a printers and have the text printed on them in opaque inks, then organise a few people into a work-bee to get all the decals transferred to leaves over the course of an evening. This is getting expensive though, and the edges of the decal film will probably be visible. This will not be at all worthwhile if you don't plan on customising each invitation, as that's really its only redeeming feature :)

But on a similar note, look into inkjet specialty papers, such as heat-transfer sheets, temporary tattoo sheets, etc etc.
posted by -harlequin- at 7:55 PM on May 21, 2007

harlequin -- can you give a bit more detail on how you did that -- what kind of leaves and what temp in the oven, if you remember any of these details? It sounds like you wrapped the invitation with the leaf before sticking in the oven? I'm not the OP but i'm super curious about doing this now, for something I have upcoming.
posted by Soulbee at 6:18 AM on May 22, 2007

Soulbee:
I actually remembered it incorrectly. There were two leaves - a large oak leaf was the "wrapping" leaf, and a smaller oval-shaped leaf (about the same size as the booklet being wrapped in the oak) had the invitee text painted on it. It then went in the oven, on its own, and was later glued to the top of the otherwise finished wrapped-leaf invitation. The wrapped leaves kept their shape not by going through the oven as I initially said, (they didn't go through the oven at all) but by being stacked for a couple of days so they couldn't unwrap, and by that time, the change in their moisture level was sufficient to keep the new shape. It also mean they stayed green, while the oven-baked ones went a rich dark colour.

We did it all pretty much by eye. I can't remember the oven temp, but I think it was more a case of trying a few test runs and just watching them change colour and dry out and take them out when they're at a point where you think they're as good as they'll get. Once you've got something you like on a test run, you just repeat those conditions for the next batch.

Depending on what you want to do, the oven may be unnecessary - I think we initally used it to try to dry the leaves out a bit in order to check that they'd still look good a few weeks from when they were made, and discovered by accident that it produced a great effect.

I had a look for some photos of them, but the photos are elsewhere. I still have a couple of the invitations (very brittle now), but they're away in the same place.

We had a group of about six people spend several hours assembling them one weekend, so with that kind of free labour, there was all sorts of extra things we could do, such as scatter (previously pressed) flower petals and grains between the pages of the booklets.

The work-bee was all after the R&D though - a few weeks beforehand we'd gone out and collected a wide range of leaves, and tried various things with them (such as the oven thing), until we had a successful path established to creating prototypes that we liked.

(Invitations are fun design projects because anything goes. And if you want to encourage the appropriate level of effort that attendees put into themselves and into preparing for the event, the quality (and/or intimidation factor) of the invitation can one of the most useful tools available :)
posted by -harlequin- at 8:51 AM on May 22, 2007 [1 favorite]

pretty late for a thanks, harlequin, sorry I forgot all about this, dangit. but thanks! Now i have another get together to plan and fully intend to do this (especially now that there are a lot more leaves out there to work with).

Thanks again .
posted by Soulbee at 7:52 AM on June 29, 2007