Leaves -- Mother Nature's Original Canvas!

The deeper that I get into this green living thing, the more I realize that we've made our lives far more complicated than they ever needed to be.

Case in point -- ART. We never really needed all of the bells and whistles and innovations in materials and supplies when all we really had to do was look toward mother nature for inspiration.

Mankind's first artists used natural earth pigments to adorn rocks and the sides of cave walls, but that seemed prehistoric to us, so we created synthetic paints and art materials which are now known to be carcinogenic (and actually have cancer warning labels on them!).

It seems so backwards, which is why I appreciate the simplicity yet absolute creativity of Jenny Lee Fowler, yet another Etsy artist who reminds all of us through her work that the best things in life are pure and straight from nature.

Admit it. You would have never thought of doing this yourself (that's why she gets paid the big bucks...well, not really...).

Her custom silhouette portraits are handcut from leaves based on a photograph that you provide to her.

Each creation measures about 2"x 3" with the leaf stem intact and is pressed behind glass and presented in a nice mat and frame.

Brazilian Design Firm Tatil Design recently came up with a slightly different but still very original concept utilizing fallen leaves.

In order to promote their “Designing Naturally” workshop during the 55th Cannes Advertising Festival, they challenged designers to create images that would then be laser etched into a varied selection of leaves.

This proved to be so wildly popular that it won the Bronze Award for the 2009 International Design Excellence Awards in Eco Design.

I wouldn't be surprised if this idea was copied on a grand scale -- business cards, anyone?

This would be such a fantastic sustainability statement for anyone with a green collar job or someone who is an eco-artist!