Kindergarten Teachers have it going on

Since I actually got feed back on my leaf question, I am going to go and do the leaf thing. I feel obligated to "live blog" the experience. Join me as I :

- Collect Leaves!
- Stress over suitability of collected leaves!
- Go To The Store and buy my first wax paper!
- Search for my iron!
- Burn myself and the leaves!
- Throw a tantrum!
- Become disgusted with myself and run to Wal-Mart to buy premade fall leafy things instead.


Collect Leaves

Dogger and I scoped out the fall leaf situation over the weekend so finding appropriate leaves is not hard. The only problem is finding the prettiest leaves out of thousands of possible candidates. They are all pretty and interesting and worthy of pressing. Dogger and I collect our leaves. As an extra bonus I ran across a couple of guys that I initially think I might be interrupting, this would be new but as it turned out, they were turning on not turned on. They give me a dirty look so I am forced to reveal how huge Dogger is, I let her pull me a little to illustrate how strong she is and how difficult it might be for me to pull her off of them should she decide to eat their faces. I would hate that for them.

Stress over suitability of leaves

Other then stressing over how many leaves and how many of each variety and color I would need, there wasn't much stress. I really didn't want to spend a lot of time out in the open arguing with myself over which yellow leaf in my bag was the "best" yellow leaf or if the orange in this leaf was more or less vivid then the orange in this leaf, or if this red leaf was redder then this other red leaf. I did, but I tried to be casual about it.

Go to store for first wax paper!

I thought I had wax paper. I could have sworn I had some. But that would lead me to asking why on earth I had wax paper. I'm not even sure what you do with wax paper other then this leaf project. I get to the store and find the isle where the wax paper should be. I do not find wax paper. eventually, after I stand their staring at the aluminum foil, cling wrap and baggies, I finally find the wax paper.

Search for iron

I find it second try. Go me!

Burn myself and the leaves!

I didn't grow up in a fall foliage place. I have only heard about this wax paper/fall leaves idea. I know it can't be hard, thousands of kindergarten teachers can't be that much more skilled than I am. I majored in fine arts - earnest art projects were part of my degree plan, I’ve built tiny little sets using nothing but found objects! It turns out my tiny little sets were not as earnest as an El Ed major earnest art projects. This whole thing is harder then it looks. I artistically arrange the leaves on the paper and get to ironing. And ironing. And ironing. Nothing. The wax isn’t melting or sticking or burning or whatever it’s supposed to do when heat is applied.

After a near tantrum I call my Mom.

It turns out I should make the iron hotter, "3" isn't hot enough and should be using my ironing board. The towel on my kitchen table isn’t going to cut it. I find my ironing board, I pat myself on the back again as I find it first try.

Trying again.

Linen setting + Ironing board = Wax leaf nirvana.

Tantrum. Not a near tantrum. Tantram City. I think I wanted to do this project last year. I collected leaves and put them in the refrigerator. I know the leaves I found in my refrigerator didn’t just magically appear there. I’m sure I will eventually get the leaves out of my kitchen drapes, from behind the oven and off the ceiling fan.

Dear Friends At Home,

I was going to send examples of real fall foliage to your fall foliage deprived kids. It was supposed to be a wax paper project, instead here are some pictures of fall foliage.

Love,
Diana