Clay Autumn Leaves

I love leaves in the fall. The colors, the way they crunch under your feet, the naked trees left behind as the crispy leaves fall with each little breathy gust of wind. I was hoping to find some branches full of leaves to bring into the house but I waited a little too long and missed the prime time for the red tones. There are a ton of green trees still, so there may be another chance yet to come. 

To compensate, I made a few leaves that will not turn brown, crumble all over the floor, or be a temporary fixture. Frankly, I love them. A. Lot. 

To start with, I grabbed a box of oven bake clay from Walmart. This one: 

I love this stuff. The box lasts significantly longer than I would have expected and it can be sanded to a really smooth finish after it's baked. Grab a chunk of it and mush it around in your hands to soften it. Once it's nice and soft, it's ready to make whatever you want. 

I rolled it flat between pieces of wax paper using my nice baking rolling pin and rolling rings (LOVE!). Hence the wax paper on top - I didn't exactly want clay residue corrupting my next batch of cookies.

After it was even, I placed leaves on top of the clay, put the wax paper over the top, and rolled to press the leaf impression into the clay. These leaves are small, and I literally just grabbed them from where the wind dropped them off on my back patio. Make sure to place the veiny side, or back, of the leaf down to get a really great impression in the clay. 

Carefully lift off the leaf, and look at the impression left behind. (It didn't photograph very well here, but it is there!)

My favorite part was the dirt that was left behind in the clay. It gave some serious character and really helped the image to show up.

 See? I never thought I'd say this, but I heart dirt.

To get a nice cutout, I used an exacto knife to cut around the edge of the leaf impression. I learned very quickly that it works better to use a tapping motion to cut downward through the clay rather than sliding the blade through it. It's soft enough that dragging somewhat smears the edges and loses a little bit of the detail.

Here it is all cut out. See the vein lines? They are awesome.

Following the package directions for your clay, bake it until it's firm. This clay is still soft when it comes out of the oven but firms up as it cools. 

After it cooled, I grabbed a variety of acrylic paints from my stash and just went at it with reckless abandon. I tried to mimic the natural coloring of each type of leaf to keep a rather natural feel to them, which often required smearing the paint around with my fingertip to blend colors and keep the coat pretty thin. It's like a sophisticated take on kindergarten! I did use some leftover glaze medium mixed to keep some of the colors more subtle. 

After the painting session, they looked like this:

Then I sprayed on a light coat of matte finish polycryllic (just because I already had it on hand from other projects) and let them dry. 

Gotta say, the little reddish ones are my fave in the picture, but the lightest oak leaf is my fave in person because it's slightly metallic from a light gold paint. Either way, I love them. 

What do you think? I'm crazy happy with them and can't quit thinking of how to use them. 

It's a Pinterest Appreciation Halloween

I had an entire post written about my love/hate relationship with Pinterest but deleted it for fear of sounding whiney. I'm guessing you can relate. It's like an endless pit of awe and inspiration, with the devilish quality of sucking ones entire life away or making us each feel like we aren't creative enough, fashionable enough, photogenic enough, or.... insert characteristic here. My SIL mentioned a while back that she's quit reading blogs because they make her feel like she isn't doing enough, when she's actually one of those awesome people we all aspire to become. I wish I had that much self control. Wait, no I don't.

For years I had folders full of ideas, just waiting for the right moment to use them. I'd cut out pages from the Pottery Barn catalog because I liked the paint or felt I could make my own kids Christmas applique quilt similar to theirs for 1/100th the cost. There were pages from old Martha Stewart Holidays magazines I'd purchased from used bookstores and random scribbles I'd jotted down watching HGTV. Somewhere, I still have half those papers in a file folder. Too bad I probably can't track down all those old ideas when I *need* them.

This year, Halloween is really laid back. I didn't make any new decorations and my Squirt's costume was purchased by her dad. I didn't plan a party or swap out couch pillows or make a new wreath. It's been very liberating. Most importantly, it's been really fun.

Since there's been no stress I actually spent 4 hours baking cupcakes with a friend and carved pumpkins  with the fam last night. Both of those endeavors were simplified by Pinterest. I literally sat at the table with a computer, typed in an idea, and five minutes later we were on our way. That would never have happened with my paper files.

We used many ideas that we found online (ghosts here, owls here) but then our creativity ran a little rampant and we came up with some things on our own (I'm especially proud of my Harry Potter ghost) like the skeleton cookies. I saw the idea here but decided that they would be extra-Halloweeny if I used the ABC cookie cutters so they were missing random limbs without having to actually break them. I'm also pretty proud of my chalk outline dead guys, though the hubs didn't seem to find the same humor in them that I did. If I'd had more time, I'd have mixed up multiple colors of royal icing and had a complete zombie apocalypse going on. As it was, I would bust up laughing every third cookie or so. Even more so when I iced one with a giddy smile.

Pumpkins are another story. I suck at pumpkins. So a quick search led to a Hello Kitty template for Squirt, which she cut out all by herself and exclaimed "It's even cuter than I thought!" Totally worth the 4.13 seconds it took to type 'jack o'lantern template' into the search box.

I guess the whole point is that I think I may just be finding a balance. Clearly I relied on the 'ol iphone and didn't pull out the Canon to document things in the name of blogging. Nor did I spend hours on Pinterest obsessing over how many freaking cool Holiday ideas are out of my budget. So, Pinterest is on my good side again. Great ideas and time to use them. That is what it should be about.

Chocolate Chip Banana Bread

Now that the skies are frequently grey and the air is becoming cold, I'm having fun getting back into the kitchen. My poor family has been mostly devoid of homemade snacks for the last several months but for some reason cooler temps make the no-dishwasher detail a moot point where baking is concerned. For today, I'm surprising my Squirt after school with her all-time favorite snack.

 

Chocolate Chip Banana Bread

*modified from the Kitchen Aid recipe booklet

1/2 cup shortening or butter

1/2 cup sugar

2 eggs

1 cup plus 2 tbsp all-purpose flour

1/2 cup whole wheat flour

dash cinnamon

1 tsp. baking powder

1/2 tsp. baking soda

1/2 tsp. salt

3 mashed bananas

1-2 tbsp. raw sugar (optional)

1/2 cup chocolate chips

Place shortening and sugar into mixer bowl. Beat until combined. Add eggs, scrape down sides of bowl and beat just until eggs are somewhat incorporated. 

Combine flours, baking powder, baking soda, salt and cinnamon in a separate bowl. Add half of flour mixture and half of banana to mixer bowl. Mix for about 30 seconds, add the rest of the flour and banana, and mix another 30 seconds. Stop and scrape the bowl. Add chocolate chips and mix until distributed. 

Pour mixture into greased and floured loaf pan. If desired, sprinkle raw sugar over the surface of the bread. Bake at 350 for 40-45 minutes or until the top doesn't look "juicy" anymore. It will likely split down the center as it rises, if this looks wet the bread will be undercooked. 

*At high altitudes, this actually takes almost a full hour to bake. Trust your gut and if it looks gooey at all, let it bake a little longer.*

Plastic Spoon Roses

In full disclosure, I completely copied this idea. 

Squirt is having a sleepover tonight, which means I will be up until around midnight with squealing girls. In order to cope I decided to try out making plastic spoon roses. The idea is pretty simple, and it didn't take too long, so I jumped right on that. 

First, I gathered everything I thought I could possibly need. Plastic spoons, a candle (tealights are all I have right now), some wire cutters, a lighter (because a candle is no good if it isn't lit), and the trusty iphone. Remember the hubs has the camera? Yeah. I apologize right now that some of these pics are pretty crappy. To start, I followed the tutorial linked above, and then I changed it.

Holding a spoon above the candle, let it get hot enough to deform and then use your fingers to mold it into a curved petal for the center of the flower.

Ooops! Don't forget you're holding something flammable whilst watching Harry Potter or you'll burn a hole clear through it!

After you've got a good looking "petal" formed from your spoon, snip the handle off.  Keep melting spoons until you've got a pile of usable petals from which to meld your flower.

Now, at this point the tutorial says to heat the broken end of one rose petal until it is melting and place it where you like. The melty plastic will attach to the base of the flower and you end up with one fully connected plastic flower. This was a great idea, but I found that my petals didn't fit together as well as I'd like and trying to melt them together at the bottom ended with black, charred bits and images of spontaneous ER visits flashing through my mind. Plus, I was not in love with how it looked. See?

By that point I was over it. Even though I kept melting and adhering petals until it was done, I didn't take any more pictures because I didn't like it enough to use the storage room on my phone. I started over with three major changes.

One: I used soup spoons instead of regular spoons. They are wide and round and look SO MUCH MORE like rose petals after they are rounded. This one change made me change my mind from "what am I thinking???" to "ohmyheck iloveit iloveit iloveit!" Two: I formed each petal as I went. Then I could mold it while it was still warm into the shape I wanted for it's particular place on the flower. Three: I hot glued each petal to a circle of felt as I went instead of melting them together.

It didn't take long for me to know this was going to be pretty dang awesome.

A third of the way into it, I was already in love.

And....? What do you think? 

I like the shape of the soup spoons soooo much better. See what I mean? Granted, I did actually have some idea what I was doing on the second one which definitely made a difference.

I am going to make many, many more of these. Just as soon as I get myself back to the Wal-marts to buy more soup spoons. My flower used 13 petals and there's 24 spoons in a box. I may get impatient and try to make one work with 11... 

Have you made anything from plastic spoons? How did it go?