My granddaughter and I have talked about placing a few red maple leafs in a 4 x 6 block of poured, clear acrylic casting resin so as to preserve their natural beauty.
My question is whether the leaf will stay bright red once encased in this resin–or will it slowly fade? Since the leaf will be hermetically sealed and most oxygen kept away from it, it seems it would stay red forever.
Or would it?
Hard to say without trying. I once took some impressions of autumn leaves in ink and they stayed pliable and retained their color for quite a while, so sealing the pores in the leaf does seem to stop it from drying out.
You will still have the effects of ultraviolet radiation that will eventually fade the pigments, but that can be largely avoided by keeping it out of sunlight.
Even if the leaves don’t stay bright red, I would imagine that they would still be quite attractive. I’d say go ahead and try it. It’s fairly inexpensive, right?