Couldn't open it.
We use red alder and broadleaf maple for our leaf molds,haven't tried anything smaller.
cheers from here

I am just beginning to learn how upload photos to webshots. So see if this link works! :-)

Nancy

Here is a link that might be useful: Small leaf projects

That second link worked! Such lovely work you have done! That leaf sphere is just fantastic!

I've used raspberry leaves, malva, oak and maple.

Marly

Hi Marly
I would be very interested in house plant leaves.
None of my houseplants are good candidates but I wouldn't mind buying 2 or 3 that I could have fun with during the winter.
I know elephant ear is OK.
What indoor plants can be grown for their leaves that grow fast and give great leaf.
My plant room is a cool 60 degrees.
I figure if you over feed some plants they might produce leaves like crazy.
Someone mentioned Cale but does it grow indoors?

I like casting morning glory leaves, they make perfect little hearts.

carey

Hardy geranium leaves, brunnera leaves, ginkgo leaves, and pole bean leaves all make very nice castings!

Nancy, I also have to compliment you on the leaf ball. How'd you get the leaf patterns on the outside? Create the ball shape, then press the leaves onto the coating? Cast it inside another ball shape? Did you do it in halves, then join them? Inquiring minds want to know! LOL!

- Lisa

How about catalpa tree leaves? Hosta? Next year I plan on using some of these smaller leaves to make a border around my flower bed.

Hostas look cool. I think I've seen those sold here as house plants.
I'm heading down to a big nursery next week to see what they have with textured leaves that grow really fast.
I had an Elephant Ear years ago and recall it grew like a weed. Are they a vine?

I just used a castor bean leaf ... haven't unmolded it yet. Very cool looking leaf, can't wait to see what it looks like.

Nancy,
Dwarf hosta, lantana, Dusty Miller 'New Look', arrowwood, wild viburnum, coleus, rhododendron, holly, basil, wild grape vine, hollyhock, geranium (annual & perennial). Unless you like the leaves flat, you can give them more detail by casting them on a damp mound of sand.
Lisa, Nancy says in the write-up beside the sphere in her alblum that she used a glass globe. You place the leaves inside the globe then slowly add your mix. You can glue the leaves in place or use double sided tape. Billie

Begonias are wonderful - especially because they are asymmetrical! Wild cucumber is another lovely thing...and the savoy cabbage, as evidenced in that awesome bit of work done by Dena.

grins

Vicki

Wow! I am home from work and all these great posts of favorite leaves! I greatly appreciate it. There are some leaves mentioned that I haven't casted before and plan to try in the future. Thank you so much :-)

Lisa, in response to your question about the leaf ball... it was a glass light globe from a light fixture. I buy them from salvage stores or Goodwill. I spray the inside with 3-M adhesive. Typically, I have used hydrangea leaves for these as I like the structure of the leaf. I cut the leaves up into pieces, then apply them to the adhesive on the inside of the globe vein side towards the center. I fill it with cement. I use a mixture of one part cement to one part sand for this. I make the mixture much wetter than if I were doing a leaf, as it will be contained within the ball. Once it is filled I wiggle the ball a bit to get air bubbles to rise to the top. Then I let it set over night and yes, unmold by breaking the glass. I put it into a bag and gently tap with the side of a hammer. The bag contains the glass shards but be careful and brush the ball to remove small fragments. I love them. Originally I started making them to be the finials on the 4x4's in a copper fence I was building around a vegetable garden. But they are wonderful throughout the garden! And even better with a frog on top!!!

I also added two pictures to the album "Small Leaf Projects". One is a special mirror designed by my friend, from hydrangeas and hostas. The second does not involve leaves but the light globe idea.. this time a decorative globe filled with cement. They look great on their own in the garden or a birdbath!

Again, thanks to all who responded!
Nancy

Here is a link that might be useful: Leaf Mirror and Decorative Globe Finial

Thanks, Nancy, for the clarification/instructions on your gorgeous leaf ball. There's a Salvation Army 2 villages over from me, so I'm gonna head out and see what I can find! Can't wait to try your method! Also, the finial and leaf mirror are really nice, too. I'd seen a light globe (like the one used for the finial) at Home Depot the other day, and had the same idea...but I'm such a cheapskate, I couldn't justify smashing the glass when it cost all of $6.99! LOL! Maybe I can find one when I'm out dumpster diving/treasure hunting...heh-heh-heh...

As for your idea of the perfect small leaf for casting projects, Tufaenough...Obviously you can have much more fun in B.C. when casting, than we generally can have here in the U.S. of A! LOLOLOL! I'd lose my ability to cast much detail, using your recommended leaves....then again, I probably wouldn't much care how they came out...they'd all be pretty funny, to me, anyway! :o ;)

- Lisa

I love your photos, Nancy, and thanks for the technique for inside the glass globes. I get them for 25-50 cents at garage sales - and about $1 at thrift stores. At this point, I must have 30 of them "saved up" for that time when I will get w/ the program once again! I have made several globes, but none w/ leaves - so this is inspiring

LOL

Vicki

I just did a casting of petasites and it's darling. I bought some of the frog spotlights from BigLots and I parked it on the casting. Looks like the frog is sitting on a lily pad!! I'll be making more when I get more leaves suitable to do them.

Nancy

Sorry I haven't been around much lately.
Real life seems to keep getting in the way.

Very nice projects, Nancy. I also love your finial and the leaf globe.
Here's a few of my favorite that I cast,
Some of the larger leaves hadn't been cleaned up when I shot this pic.
The small leaves at the very bottom are from my Hops vine.
I love the shape and the detail you get from these leaves.
Mertie

Here is a link that might be useful: {{gwi:74328}}

My fav small leaf for casting is Lady's Mantle.

Continued thanks to you all for the additional small leaves suggestions! I will be teaching a leaf class in two weeks for 10 friends/gardeners and I will definitely be including some new leaves. It's always nice to have a variety of leaves available that can be successfully casted by beginners... and small leaves are great to start with, especially in autumn when so many of the larger sized leaves are dying back!!!

Scooterbug.. I hadn't ever tried a lady's mantle leaf because the back of the leaf was a little fuzzy, then one of my friends casted one. I was stunned with how lovely they cast! Great suggestion. Thanks! I will be including them, I had forgotten.

Happy casting to you all!
Nancy

The leaves are the verbs that conjugate the seasons. ~Gretel Erlich

Nancy,
I'm curious, did you also make the hands that are in your photo album? They're neat.

Nancy

Nancy in North Carolina,

The "garden hands" in my album is a latex mold that I filled with a cement mixture. I first saw the hands on the GardenWeb, if I remember correctly the post was by QueenLaTufa. She was making them of hypertufa to hold small plants such as bonsai. In the post it was mentioned that she got the mold off of eBay..so I went straight to eBay, found the mold, put in a bid and got it! I have a particular fondness for hands as my occupation is a hand therapist, healing injured and broken hands. Glad you liked the photo. I love the hand mold. I have made many and given them away to friends.

Nancy in Oregon

If the day and night are such that you greet them with joy, and life emits a fragrance like flowers and sweet scented herbs, that is your success, and all nature is you congratulation. ~Thoreau

Nancy, Are you going to teach your friends leaf casting on a flat surface or a sand mound?
Hi Mertie, Was just thinking of you as I was cleaning up my castor bean plant for Fall. Hope real life has been giving you other fun things to do. Billie

Billie,

I like to teach on a mound. I think a well formed mound is very important for making a good looking leaf. I ask people to bring a low box (like the kind the nurseries give you when you buy plants), a bag of garden mulch, and a plastic garbage bag. To make a firm mound (similar to sand), I have everyone put a sufficient amount of the mulch into the plastic garbage bag, add some water, place this into the nursery box and start "pounding" the bag of mulch into a firm mound that won't collapse when patting the cement onto the leaf. This set-up makes it easy to transport the newly cast leaf home and the plastic mound can be re-used again and again.

The only leaves I like to do flat are the redbuds as they make a perfect heart. Carey responded that morning glories make a perfect heart shaped leaf... so that is the next one I will try flat!

Nancy

Live as if you are going to die tomorrow, garden as if you are going to live forever. ~Joan Kipling

The smallest leaves I've done are Swedish ivy and it is rather tedious but the results are very good. These are good a "fill-ins" for green men.

I love doing hydrangea leaves and then attaching a dried bloom. Makes a nice gift.

c

Carol,

Thanks for the ideas, especially love the hydrangea leaf with the dried bloom attached!!!

Nancy

"As the sun colors flowers, so does art color life." ~John Lubbock

Nancy, You may want to try using the damp sand for classes. No pounding! LOL! You can use styrofoam plates with a damp sand mound then just slip the whole thing in a zip lock baggie. You can reuse this setup also. I teach at some of the nature centers around here and it's much easier for people to transport home. You can't do an enormous leaf on the plates but it gives everyone the idea of how it's done so they can do it at home. Big plus is you're not mixing large amounts of mortar or hypertufa. Billie

On walkabout today with the dog,I noticed a leaf that we have here on the West Coast,common as mud.That's the salal bush.Nice glossy leaves about 4 inches long,available out here in our yard year round.For you people on the "other" coast or points in between,you get salal in bouquets from your sweetie,along with roses and such.Nice shiny leaves that apparently are used in a tea,and the berries are edible during the summer!
So what plants are native to your area?
Cheers from here!

Hi Rick,

Thanks for the reminder about salal. The leaves do cast fairly well and as you mention they are evergreen. A real bonus!! Last year one of my friends cast salal leaves, poked a hole in them near the stem, then painted them with a green acyrlic wash and used them as name tags for her Christmas gifts. She wrote the name on the "smooth" backside of the cast leaf. Looked great !! One other common evergreen used in landscaping on the west coast is viburnum davadii. It's leaves also cast well.

Hope you stay dry on your next walkabout! Oregon has rain predicted for most all the next week.

Nancy

How beautifully leaves grow old. How full of light and color are their last days. ~John Burroughs

Nancy, I love the hand molds in your link! Can you tell us how you did it?

Mary

Dear Mary,

I am glad you liked the hands, I love having them in my garden. I made the hands from a latex mold I bought off eBay. I have made many from the same mold and given them as gifts. The woman that sells the mold is listed on eBay as gostatue. You can do a search of sellers and find her store. She typically has around 2000 items for sale, if you look to her listings on the left, click on "latex molds with plastic backups" to see if she has any hands for sale. She intermittently puts them on for auction.

They are very easy to cast. The mixture is just 1 part portland cement with 2 or 3 parts sand. Fill the mold and let it set for a day, then peel back the latex like taking a rubber glove off your hand. She recommends warm water on the outside of the mold before peeling it off to make it easier. She sends directions with the mold. Over time there is stretching of the mold so they don't last forever.

Hope that answers your question!
Nancy

My favorite small leaf so far is heuchera. I love the texture and detail. And maple -- they're fun to paint!

{{gwi:74329}}{{gwi:74330}}{{gwi:74331}}

Has anyone tried poinsettia leaves?

And Nancy -- where in Oregon are you? I'm north of Portland, just outside of St. Helens.

ladylong, those leaves are GORGEOUS! And HUGE! My Heuchera leaves are only about 2" across max.! Wonderful stuff!
Painting is something that I have not tried thus far. Do you have any tips to share with us about casting or painting?

Thanks for sharing.

Beautiful painting.
colors are awesome!
Dena

Garden Chicken - Thanks! Tips? Wow. I've done like 5 leaves, total. :) I'm a rank beginner! I'm still not sure of myself with the casting -- like how thick they should be, for one thing. Or whether they have to be done all in one coat or you can do multiple thinner layers, or what the best mix is. My best tip so far is using wet strips of newspaper for keeping things damp while they cure.

The heuchera is one I planted last year. That's the biggest leaf it's produced so far, but it's got plenty that are 3 and 4 inches across. I don't know if all the varieties get to be the same size -- I saw some really cool color combinations of heuchera last weekend, though. I might have to start a collection for leaf casting and painting. :)

The painting is fun -- I just kind of wing it and see what happens. I use cheap watercolor brushes, a stencil brush, and chunks of natural sponge -- kind of whatever I happen to grab first, usually. The maple leaf actually went through a number of transformations before I finally made a trip to Wal-Mart to add some brighter colors to my muted collection of acrylics, so it has so many shades on it I don't know if I could ever duplicate it. That's what makes them fun, though. If you use the paint diluted, like Dena says, the layers don't build up on your leaf so much and you can just keep trying things until it looks right.

One thing I learned from an art teacher I had was to try to see all the colors in things. If you look at a leaf, it's really not solid green, it's all sorts of shades of green and other colors mixed in. The heuchera, for instance, looks purple, but there's actually a lot of green in it, and some red and blue and black... If you punch holes in a couple of index cards and lay them over a green leaf, you can suddenly see how different the green is in different areas. Pretty soon you start noticing colors you didn't know were there. She had us looking at everything in little pieces through our cards and using all sorts of interesting colors in our work -- for leaves, she would have us add tiny bits of red (complimentary color) here and there, and purple in the shadows, etc. You don't really see the colors, but they make the picture look much more alive than if you just used shades of green.

Dena - Wow, you have no idea how many times I've gone back to gaze at the photos of your painted leaves; they are so gorgeous! A compliment from you is an honor, thanks! :)

I live in a rural area, in several fields around me they raise pumpkins for Libbey's. Has anyone use pumpkin leaves for casting with success?? Thanks, Rhonda

Ladylong,

Thanks for the great post on painting leaves ... I loved the tip about punching holes in an index card to "see" the different colors in the leaf!!

I will have to try some heucheras... loved yours.

You asked where I was in Oregon, saying you were north of Portland near St.Helens, well, I am south of Portland near Lake Grove off of I-5 south. Not all that far!

Nancy

Ooh, not far at all! Give me a holler if you ever need company to play in the mud with. :) You can get my e-mail address from the "my page" link above.

My usual summer crafting buddy (we're in nursing school so that's the only time we can indulge our creative sides!) is all preoccupied with getting married this summer and has completely deserted me. Sheesh. Who'da thunk planning a wedding could take priority over making pretties??? Oh, well. I'm being a good sport, because he's a great guy. NEXT summer, though, she's MINE! :)

rhonda2006,

I have cast several pumpkin and squash leaves and love the veining on the leaves. I love forming them into bowl shapes.
Good luck! I am going to start a few this week now that my leaves are large enough.

Thanks Rainsend. They irrigate here to they are growing on a daily basis with all the hot weather. I'm going to try and catch someone to get permission first :)

rhonda2006,

Getting permission is a good idea -- just make sure its from the right person. I asked an older man if I could pick up a few of the field stone turned up in a empty field. He said sure. While I was loading a few in the back of the car a pickup truck pulled up quick behind me. The guy got out, yelled at me, and asked me what I was up to. It turns out the old man I asked was a bit dippy and this wasnt even his field. The guy was mad because the field had just be sprayed with pesticides. I didnt pick up any more rocks once I realized they smelled of pesticide. And I just wanted to get as far away from that gentleman as possible. How embarrassing that experience was.