Elephant Leaf Project

So our neighbors are just AWESOME! Seriously, they are the best neighbors! I can't say enough great things about them. They moved in right before Claira was born and we clicked pretty instantly. These are their Elephant Leaves. They also have banana leaves which are HUGE too!

Their huge Elephant Ears!

We thought about maybe doing these too, but thought better of it.

So if you don't know yet, I am a Pinterest junkie, addict and overall hoarder of information. It's a true statement. It's bad...really bad. One day while I was surfing the cavernous informational site and I came across this pin...easy-backyard-diys which lead to hunting down the best DIY cement leaf project.

Great tutorial for Elephant Leafs

This is huge plastic tub!

So I had sent a this pin to my neighbor and wanted to try this project out. She was definitely for it and told us we could use the leaves from her yard! Did I mentioned how blessed we are? 

You'll need:

Concrete or cement

A plastic tarp

Sand

A bucket to mix the concrete/cement

Rubber gloves

Big plastic container

A leaf or leaves

So you are going to need concrete, or cement, but we used concrete.

You're going to need sand if you want it concave.

This is Mitch getting the sand wet and pliable.

You'll need the plastic sheeting to go over the sand.

We decided to use the smallest leaf...it was the only one that fit.

Here's Little Miss. C with her medium sized leaf.

She loved playing with that; used it like an umbrella.

So now you add the concrete...

Add water...see I do help, not just supervise. 

And more water....till it looks like a paste.

Mix it well.

Then start applying it to the leaf. Make sure it's about an inch thick.

Thank GOD for gloves! Don't forget your gloves.

Yeah.....we over poured. It's our first time I'm cutting us some slack.

Our little helper. 

He had to smooth it out. He's meticulous like that.

So this was the next day, 24 hours later and...

Peal the leaf off.

Et Viola! One cement leaf impression to use however you'd like.

I'm thinking that we might get a little cement stand and put it in the back yard as a bird bath or something. Nothing too fancy, just something out of the way. Next time we try this, we'll make stepping stones for the back yard! Maybe they can go in the garden around the plants so we have a place to stand when we harvest our garden goodies, or just use them as decoration. It's totally a fun project and Mitch is excited to try it again. Happy cementing!