Patience is the key here..... if you can stand to wait, the leaf will eventually dry out and fall off. By then if little pieces are still clinging you can try various brushes or little picks. Some leaves seem to be especially "clingy".
When I have tried these methods too soon I have gouged some leaves and ruined them. good luck!
Laura

Marie, Post some pics when you get a chance, always love seeing the different kinds of leaves.
Did you use a sand mound for support and contouring? What cement mix did you use? How long did you let the casting sit before removing the real leaf? I remove the real leaf as soon as possible, anywhere from a couple hours after casting for small leaves to 24 or 48 hours for large. Just remove the real leaf and place in a bucket of water to continue curing. If any of the real leaf sticks, as Laura said, let the casting harden before you try to remove the remains of the real leaf. I use dental picks that I picked up at a car show flea market. You can also use large sewing needles; just about anything that has a fine point. And some leaves are just a problem, hairy leaves like dusty miller or irregular surface leaves like basil can stick. For some reason lantana leaves give a nice imprint but if the leaf is bruised on the vein side something is released from the leaf that slows the cure. Billie

thanks for the suggestions. I will let the leaf dry well and try again. Here are two pictures of my leaves. The largest leaf is a Taro plant that a garden center let me have. The others are elephant ear and lotus. The close up shows the difference between the Quickcrete resurfacer and the standard 1 part Portland to 3 parts sand plus acrylic fortifier. There are very few bubbles in the quickcrete. I am new to this craft and probably have not mastered working with portland/sand. I know I do not do the patting correctly. Marie {{gwi:2217}}
{{gwi:2218}}

Just a followup to the above. I used quickcrete resurfacer for the first layer. I then switched to the portland/sand/and fortifer for the final layer plus using drywall tape along edges, Marie

Billie - your mention of the Lantana bruise effect on setting reminded me of what happened when I experimented w/ frozen leaves. Members of the cole family - cabbage etc - could be frozen for later use, thawed, and made great casts. SO I thought I would try it w/ rhubarb, since there was so much rhubarb available - more than I could possibly use. Well, let me tell you - the oxalic acid in the rhubarb leaf is released upon thawing, and my failure rate was 100% - not one single frozen rhubarb provided a good outcome....live and learn...and experiment along the way!

grins

Vicki

Vicki, After you or someone mentioned about freezing (gee seems a couple of years ago) I had some frozen leaves in the freezer. My mother thought I was having a nervous breakdown. No food in the freezer just leaves!

Here is a link that might be useful: {{gwi:2216}}

Gardengal,

Your castings are lovely!! Don't worry about those pesky pinholes that are inevitable! You probably already know this, but you can take a couple of tablespoons of portland/sand/water mix, a glove covered finger, and just rub the mix back and forth over the leaf to fill those little holes. Keep rubbing and after a few minutes you won't even know where those holes were! Magic!

Are you going to paint them?

I am big into realism in my castings and want to paint the leaves so people have to actually touch them to make sure they aren't alive.

If you are interested, I would be happy to let you know how to do the painting.

Good work! Keep casting!

Amanda

Billie - I really did buy a freezer (new) to put in the garage and use it just FOR leaves - and I am happy to say that it NOW has food in it. I would never have been able to justify my buying a second FOOD freezer for this family of ONE - but for leaves? Well, THAT made sense ............. then! LOL

grins

Vicki

You have inspired my first post. I have been lurking here and at the hypertufa forum.

I imagine by now you have found that patience is the key. My first leaf was a maple and it mostly peeled easitly. And then I did a rhubarb. Beautiful leaf but so tender it was stuck tight. But after soaking and then drying it was easily sprayed off with the hose. Must be sure it is well aged before using the hose.
I misread the recipe and made first leaves with 1 cement to 1 sand and they came out very smooth -few holes . Is this what topping mix is?

Quikrete has many products as you can see if you check out the following site. I used the resurfacer. A friend of mine uses concrete patcher (haven't seen her leaves). I also made casting using another kind of leaf and the result was different. It must be true that the chemical makeup of the leaf effects the cast. Have fun, Marie

http://www.quikrete.com/catalog/catalog.html

I cast a squash 3 weeks ago. Talk about being stuck to the surface! I thought it would stick and it did. I really wanted to see what would happen if I rubbed down the prickles on the back side with my rubber glove. The veins came out ok but the leaf surface between the veins will take some doing. I used a stiff brush and got most of it off but there's still a green "sheen" on the leaf which I assume is all the embedded little fuzzies which may never come out. Oh well. It was just an experiment anyway and maybe paint will cover it. It's too bad really because the squash/pumpkins have some really nice, large leave.

Blowtorch? Burn it off?

this may sound silly - but has anyone tried to first spray the leaf with PAM -

I would love to try casting myself. Can anyone offer step by step instructions on how this is done?
I don't know if this will help anyone but here are some products for mold release that may help.
http://www.moldmoreparts.com/index.htm
Grancru

Grancru - here is the link - right from this very forum, top of page 1, FAQs ....

ENJOY!

Here is a link that might be useful: Everything you ever needed to know about casting!