The Gist: You step on crunchy leaves. 🍃

Dear soggy fries and crunchy fries people, today, we give you something new to unite over:

Crunchy Leaves

Yes! It's the time of the year (in Singapore at least) where we get a bunch of fallen leaves on the ground thanks to rain and storm.

But they also get baked in our sweltering hot sun and become...crunchy.

You know the joy of popping bubble wrap? Or crunching on crispy chips?

You can now enjoy BOTH these pleasures in ONE activity known as 'Stepping on Crunchy Leaves!

And so, for this month's play thing, we are inviting you to join us on the hunt for the crunchiest leaves!!

You will need:

1. a place full of fallen dried leaves, ideally not in a pile
(because how will you test the crunchiness of individual leaves?)

2. a stomping appendage
(feet are the most common, but to each their own)

Instructions

Step 1: pick a leaf

Preferably one that looks crunchy.

Step 2: step on it

or stomp, or press down on it with your tool or appendage of choice.
Basically, MAKE IT GO CRUNCH!

Step 3: assess its crunchiness

Did it crunch satisfyingly?
Did it crunch loud enough?

Here is an example of crunchy leaf hunting in action:

Bonus: Tips for finding the crunchiest leaves

Dryness
If it wasn't totally obvious, the drier the leaf, the crunchier it would be.

Shape
Or rather, how curled up is the leaf?

If it's still relatively flat on the floor, it doesn't matter how try it is, it won't crunch well. For maximum crunch, you want layers!!!  The more said leaf is shrivelled and curled up, the crunchier it will be. Of course, some leaves don't really curl up, they just arch off the floor awkwardly. Those have good crunch-potential too.

Thickness
You know how thick potato chips are crunchy while the thin was one crispy?

The same thing applies to leaves. Thicker leaves tend to be crunchier. Because most thick leaves are also big leaves, larger leaves also have a greater chance of being satisfyingly crunchy. Sadly they also take longer to dry out and so may be harder to find.

👨‍🎨Artist's Notes

aka why we made this

Because it's fun?

But okay, you probably want to know the story of how this came about.

Well, we were walking towards the bus stop one rare sunny afternoon and couldn't help but notice all the fallen leaves on the floor.
They looked so dry and so...crunchy.

So we uh...stepped on them.

And 🎺😇 THEY INDEED WERE VERY SATISFYINGLY CRUNCHY!

We ended up stepping on every dried leaf in that vicinity but sadly none were as satisfying as the first one. Much tears were shed,

But it's okay, we had fun, and that's all that matters!

And we wanted to share that fun with you.

😃