Skeletons in my closet!

  Ok, so after weeks of gorgeous weather, the past few rainy days has just made me a tad crazy.  I slip outside in between the showers but, overall, I have to stay inside.  Blah!  Still, I should not complain since I see where some family members are still enduring winter.  My indoor time has been spent cleaning house or working on craft projects. Those crafty times far outweigh the housecleaning in my opinion!

  While out working in the yard the past few weeks, I noticed that a lot of the leaves from the citrus trees were becoming a tad "rotten".  It has been an extremely wet winter and pre-spring so the mounds of leaves stay wet even on the driest days.  These rotten leaves were showing signs of becoming leaf skeletons at a very rapid rate.  IDEA!  Oh, the crafty me needed leaf skeletons by the boatloads!  I have grand ideas of how to use the skeletons in projects!  I just needed to help the skeletonizing process along a bit!  Half of my time cleaning under the grapefruit trees was spent on my hands and knees collecting the perfect leaves for the "exfoliation" process.  Once I gathered enough to keep me busy, I looked for an easy way to make the skeletons.  Some of the instructions were ridiculously hard and time consuming.  I tried soaking the leaves in washing soda, bleach and hydrogen peroxide.  I tried beating the the leaves between two cloths.  Nothing seemed to work well enough to suit me.  The washing soda soaking method did remove a good bit of the pulpy mess but it also weakened the veins of the leaves.  I really did not want a weak skeleton.  I just wanted to remove the fleshy part!  So I experimented!

  Of all things, I went back to Mother Nature, herself!  My next bunch of soggy leaves were left just that..soggy.  The leaves were layered in a stainless steel bowl (so it would not rust!) and left on the porch.  After three days, I brought them inside and separated a few from the bowl.  In my kitchen sink, I proceeded to "exfoliate" them.  I used the spray nozzle to imitate rain!  As the water rained down on the leaf, the fleshy part started sloughing off and down the drain!  Within a span of thirty seconds, my leaf was almost a perfect skeleton.  The skeleton was placed on a paper towel to dry. This was far easier and quicker (not to mention cheaper) than any of the suggested methods.  Any of the leaves that were not fully cleaned within a minute were put back in the bowl for one more day.  The dried skeletons were put in envelopes for protection and stowed away in the craft closet!

  These leaf skeletons will now be put to good use in some future project.  Looking in some of the art shops, I found that painted and framed leaf skeletons sell for a good bit of money.  And then there are some that are coated in precious metals that have exorbitant price tags attached to them.  Who knew that something mussing up my yard could ever be worth a bunch of money?  My skeletons probably will never make me rich but that matters not to me.  I enjoy creating with things from nature and these leaf skeletons intrigue me.  Those skeletons in my closet will come tumbling out when the brain figures just how they will be used.

One for the books!

I must say that this hallway redo has been quite the chore! It all started with that simple built-in closet under the stairway but quickly grew into a massive remake. Everything was just about redone..from the ceiling to the floor..so I suppose you can truly say that I redid the hallway from top to bottom! And it is that bottom that is in progress now!

The leaf skeletons dried quite well and they are now glued in place. It was an ordeal getting them to lay flat but Son suggested that a piece of tin foil and several books would smash them into place. What a brilliant son I have! My niece, Heidi, came to visit so I conned her into helping me with the skeletons. We glued, foiled and placed books until my hall began to resemble a very untidy library! Heidi wondered if we would absorb the knowledge contained in the books by stepping on them! Literary stepping stones!

Several hours later, the moment truth was at hand. Would the tin foil stick to the leaf skeletons or would it peel off like Son thought it would? I removed the first book, gingerly lifted off the foil...it worked! Again..what a brilliant son I have!!!! I started pulling books and foil off in rapid succession. I could hardly wait to put the first of many coats of polyurethane on the floor.

With just one coat of the clear on, the floor pleases me. I know that this would not be to everyone's taste but it suits me to a tee! I am happy with the results!

Skeletization!

Just in time for Halloween..skeletization! Skeletization is defined as removing the soft tissue from a skeleton and that is just what I was busy doing today! I was making skeletons! Now before I mislead you into believing that I was creating Halloween decorations or doing something far more macabre, I will explain. I am still redoing the hallway and had a so-called brilliant idea for the floor. The floor is a sort of plywood so it is nothing that I cannot play with as to become a conversation piece. I had asked friends what they thought and all agreed.."Go artistic!"...so here I am with my artistic wheels just a-turning in my head! Skeletons! I would put skeletons on my floor! Not human ones...that would be just a little too icky. Nope! I would put leaf skeletons on the floor with some sort of border going around the edge! Yes..this is a working project with nothing etched in stone.

So, out I went to find leaf skeletons! Most of the time there are plenty of them just littering the ground under the citrus trees. I searched the area. What is usually covered with leaves was bare! Where are my leaves?? Son had decided to do more yard cleaning. He raked everything clear..my leaves were gone. I think I will have to have a talk with him or merely take away the rake! Yes..I know..most parents would be elated to have their son out cleaning the yard but hey, this was too extreme. I was in need of these leaves! I eyed the grapefruit tree. Nope..still green. No leaves were skeletized! Well..I would just have to make my own! I did find a few dead leaves that Son missed in his clean-sweep raking. These were still hung up in the branches of the tree! I grabbed them and headed indoors without an inkling of how to rid them of their fleshy parts.

I looked up all I could find (which was absolutely more than unhelpful!). Nothing, zilch, nada..I was on my own. Let the experimentation begin! I tried soaking the dead leaves in hot water...did not work! I tried boiling the leaves...did not work! Then I tried soaking the leaves in bleach...this somewhat worked! The (dried) fleshy part by this time was getting a mite mushy. The bleach seemed to eat away at some part that was sort of connecting the flesh to the veins. Nice! Now there is a saying about "Having the patience of a Saint....", but obviously I need not apply for sainthood if that is a requirement. Rubbing off the fleshy part of the leave was a time-consuming task and I wanted my leaf skeletons..like..yesterday! I suppose I could have been a bit more careful and perhaps my skeletons would not have ripped apart..but I was not. Thus, I lost about half of my leaves. The few that I managed to skeletize look nice but now I will have to revamp my idea. Plan B will come in action as soon as I think of it!

Friggatriskaidekaphobia!

Oh yes! I got you with that one! Friggatriskaodekaphobia! According to Wikipedia this is the fear of Friday the 13th and well..today was Friday, August 13th. For anyone that is superstitious Friday the 13th is considered a day of bad luck. The day that Murphy's Law is in full effect..you know the one that is paraphrased to state that "Anything that can go wrong, will go wrong." This is a day that is supposed to be filled with black cats, broken mirrors and spilled salt. Maybe I should break out some of the "good luck charms". Let's see got my four leaf clover..check..got my horseshoe..check..got my rabbit's foot..check! Ok now! I am ready to face the day! Not really! I guess I have never really thought that Friday the 13th was any different than any other day. And besides..think about those good luck charms..we killed a plant, hobbled a horse and amputated a bunny's foot..not too lucky for any of them I must say!

BUT..today I found skeletons in my yard! That sort of fit right in with today's reputation..something sort of eerie and maybe unlucky (at least for the skeletons!). And I am playing with you again! I did find skeletons but not the sort that are bones. I found skeletons of the flora not fauna type. Leaf skeletons and some really cool lantern shaped skeletons of the Japanese Lantern Plant. These skeletons unlike the boney type are made from the veins of leaves and seed pods of plants. The fleshy part of the leaf (or seed pod) has rotted away leaving wonderful lacy designs. I have always been fascinated by these leaf lines and today, to have found the lantern skeletons really pleased me. I picked up all I could find and carried them into the house. Not sure just what I was going to do with them, I laid them all on the table. Here, I left them while I went to get the camera..maybe I could get a few good shots of them! I came back to discover my skeletons were missing! This could not be so! Where had they gone? Surely Ezzy did not eat them! I glared at the dog! She wagged her tail. Maybe not, she looked too innocent..hmm..I guess. But how could skeletons disappear? They were not on the table! I got down on my knees to look deep into the "no man's land" under the table. I stared into the creepy

world of the Dust Bunnies! Ahh, there they were rolling around as if they were tumbleweeds off of an old western movie set! The ceiling fan had whisked my skeletons away! It was harder to catch them inside than it was out in the yard. The chase was on and after a mere few minutes I had corralled all twenty-two of the little rascals! Now for the photo shoot sans the whirling ceiling fan! These skeletons will be set aside in hopes of becoming an art project some day.