|Examples of landscaping materials for miniature scenes|
Many landscaping supplies can be bought from model railway stores or you can make your own.
Here are the instructions to make a garden around a dolls house:
- Cut a baseboard larger than the building. This will be the garden. Mark on it where the building will go. Leave the space clear.
- Paint the rest of the board green, not forgetting to paint around the sides. if you want a little path to the front door, paint this in now with brown paint, or use a strip of paving paper like the ones in the photograph.
- Spread tacky glue over the green surface and sprinkle on a fine green railway scatter as grass. If you want to make your own 'grass', collect fine sawdust and dye it various shades of green.
- You can make flowers using flocking or Flower Soft which comes in various colours. Use a toothpick to dot tacky glue onto places you want flowers to be, then dip another toothpick into the flocking and dab it onto the glue spots.
- Other flowers and leaves can be made from paper using punches or you can buy flower-making kit sets to put together.
- To make a climbing vine, run stranded green embroidery thread through tacky glue, then 'grass', then wind it round the building supports. When dry, add flowers as explained above.
- You can buy ready-made trees and bushes or make them yourself. I collect little pieces of lichen from a tree in our garden, dry them, then use them as miniature bushes.
- To make trees, take lengths of florist wire, hold in a bundle and wrap brown florist tape partway up the bundle for a trunk. Spread out the un-taped ends of wire for branches. Dip into tacky glue and then into railway scatter for the foliage.