Fall Leaves

I wanted to make something for Fall, something to wear on a scarf. There are no really nice leaves in my yard, the only trees I have left are the very old Mulberry trees. The leaves on them are huge, bigger than my hand usually, so I went hunting in the neighborhood and found a beautiful maple tree a few blocks over. I came home and messed around with the leaves I picked up. I finally used resin make a rigid enough leaf to imprint in molding material. I peeled it out and voila! a leaf mold... 

but... it was a flat leaf. I liked it ok, but you know what? I kind of wanted some shape to it... so, when I poured the acrylic into the mold to make this, I waited for about 8 hours and tried moving the mold... The acrylic wasn't going to pour out, but it wasn't solid either, so I used my vice and, no joke,  clothes pins, and pulled the mold out of shape a bit. 

It worked! I got a misshapen leaf. I drilled into it and placed the crystal... didn't get a really good picture of it, but it sparkles!

I used gold leaf to add a bit of detail on the "rim" around the edges, I used a knife to make that indention in the mold, but didn't get it all the way around, so it is just highlighted some