Sunday 23 August 2020

2020 Summer of Scenery - part 2a: Leaves

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...

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).
 

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!!)

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.

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.

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!

Useful storage container.


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