Mom, kids 9 and 11, grandmother and a friend cast concrete leaves yesterday for the first time and are awaiting "unveiling" tomorrow. During the course of our experiment, several questions arose and I hope someone can answer.
The recipe we used was 1 part portland to 2 1/2 white sand. I'd heard that adding Elmers glue can be added to strengthen the concrete. Elmers permanent or school glue and when do you add it? How much to perhaps a gallon ice-cream bucket of mix? How to test mix for enough water? I think ours may have been too runny. Or perhaps we didn't wait long enough before applying it to the leaf backs. Small cracks seem to be developing in one of the leaves. Anyone have any idea why this happened? We did use fiberblass tape to reinforce.

The completed casts were covered with saran, then newspaper to keep the sun off. Would hot sun have been bad or good? The castings were misted several times since completion and will get more til we uncast the leaves. Can we continue to mist to "cure" them? Or should we leave them in a bucket of water for a week or so to cure before painting? (We have two that are too large for buckets.)

Next comes the painting. I need recommendations on how to proceed. I think we'd like to use several colors blended together. We have oodles of Apple Barrel acrylic craft paint. Can we dilute this and use on the leaves? I understand we can also use water-based house paint. Is this correct? Do we do the veins first? Then what? Can you seal as soon as the paint is dry or should we wait for a day or so?

I've seen so many great leaves on links to this forum, I'd really like our project to have a happy outcome and a positive reinforcement, especially for the kids.