Green leaves, past present and future

I am excited about the Creative Every Day theme for January: Past, Present and Future . Since I also started a new round of Denise Linn's Soul Coaching in which you also focus on what is, what was and what you want in the future it is right up my alley. But it also involves a lot of cleaning and writing, and crochet is not always top priority.
But weighing both themes I came up with this crochet leave, with the future (in lighter green) and the past (in brown) still having to be made.
I found the pattern in a Dutch magazine Haken, but also faced something unexpected in the pattern, the small numbers 3 have to be made, but nowhere is explained how to do it (any advice is welcome! since there are two more leaves to make).

I used 3 chain stitches for the transition of the rim to the main part, and 1 chain for the others, so this is how my leave turned out. It is now about 16 cm long, but I really like it to be bigger, so perhaps I will have another go at this.