Eating Leaves (and Friday Favorites)

My son (who won't eat anything off a salad unless it's a crouton) is more than willing  to help eat these leaves... and even though they're for Elisabeth's family baby shower tomorrow, I did let him have the broken ones.  It's only fair since he helped me so much yesterday.

I read a lot online to make sure I was doing these right.  There's some debate on what is best.  Some people suggested florist shop lemon leaves, but this sounded expensive and possibly full of pesticides, so I decided against that option.  I read other comments suggesting plastic leaves, but with so many of them made in China (and I'm guessing with even fewer regulations than kids' toys) I didn't think that was a good idea either.  Martha Stewart suggested mint leaves, but I don't have any of those growing in my backyard this summer.  Something to think about for another year, I guess.  So, I ended up researching the plants in my backyard to make sure I wasn't going to accidentally poison anyone.

I decided on lilac leaves because they looked simple.

I also chose Maple leaves because I love their beautiful shape.

I love how well you can see all the veins.  (Isn't God's handiwork beautiful?)

The maple leaves ended up being tricky to remove... so there were a couple that Diego had to take care of.  The lilac leaves were simple to remove.  Overall, it was an easy project. Painting the underside of leaves was a cinch.  The most difficult part was removing the leaf from the chocolate and keeping my hands cool enough to manipulate the chocolate without melting it.  Typically, this would be no problem, but my hands seem to always be hot this pregnancy.  I would do this again because it was simple enough and I liked the results, but I probably wouldn't waste my time with the maple leaves again. 

And because we're gearing up for a woodland themed baby shower around here.  I thought a treasury reflecting that would be appropriate.  If money were no object, I would by all the things here for the little lad!  Elisabeth was more than generous with both of my babies and I wish I could reciprocate just as well!

I did purchase one thing that's listed in this treasury for her baby... but I can't tell you which one yet because she reads this blog (on occasion).  But what I can tell you is that it turned out more beautiful than I expected.  Now, what would you buy if it were you?