I used dried tea-leaves for leaf-litter in the woods I made for the local games club but I wasn't entirely happy with the result. Following the foam shredding, Number 1 & Number 2 sons assisted with gathering a few nice dry leaves from the garden - mainly Hazel, Sycamore and Rose, all of which had a nice crisp crunchy texture. There were plenty of lovely dry, crumbly Foxglove leaves too, but it would have been a bad idea to use them! Always think about the toxicity of anything your going to use in your scenery projects...
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| Materials - leaves! |
Equipment used comprised assorted jugs (as purchased for the foam flock-making), some sieves and a tea-strainer, an old oven tin and a blander (also from the flock-making).
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| Equipment. |
The leaves were blended to a fine texture by Number 1 son, a very satisfying process, if a little dusty. (Number 2 son was absent for this stage - no way I'm letting a 1 year old loose with a blender!!)
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| Ready to blend! |
The end result was sieved to remove all the larger pieces and bits of stalk etc. Somewhere I have a finer sieve which I'll use at some point to grade the leaves. At the moment they're quite large for 15mm, something akin to scale sycamore and the like.
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| Leaf litter. |
I was initially disappointed that some of the leaf veins had come through the sieve but actually I think it looks OK on the ground - they give the appearance of small twigs and in-scale leaf stalks.
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| Leaf litter with undergrowth. |
To store the leaf litter I have a handy plastic pot from Tesco that contained those little orange and lemon jelly slice cake decorations. The label peeled off easily, the lid screws on firmly and I can instantly see exactly what's in it. Ideal!
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| Useful storage container. |
I like how these turned out!
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