Small Landscape with park bench: Make a small base using the odd 5" x 7" frame that has been lying in the drawer for 100 years. Paint it to match the bench. Place a small piece of 1/4" foam core inside the frame. Cover it with groundcover or brick.

Pierce the foam core in one corner with a corsage pin and insert clumps of the paper flowers you're making following Sonia's directions. By using foam core, you do not have to glue the flowers in place. This stores them where you can enjoy them but allows you to "transplant" them when their permanent home is ready.

Take a cotton ball, dye it green, add texture of your choice. I like tiny punched leaves. Apply texture with a spray adhesive. While this dries, pick a twig from any bush or shrub. Be sure the trunk makes a "Y". Insert the twig into the underside of the decorated cotton ball. Pull the cotton into a shape that satisfies you. Plant this in one of the small wood planters on the auction site or add it to the foam core. Used coffee grounds that have been placed in the microwave to dry and sterilize them will make a good mulch around the base of the shrub.

Use a household sponge from the dollar store as a hedge. Dip it in a solution of diluted green paint or Rit dye. While wet, pull small pieces from the body to roughen the texture. When dry, dry brush a different color of green on the high spots. You may add texture from Woodland Scenics or make your own with dyed pieces of foam. Pop the hedge to the back of the "set". You may glue or pin it in place.

This is a quick, easy way to build a neat home for the odd items all of us collect. Set it on a bookshelf and enjoy the items you've been hiding. You will be surprised how much you enjoy a fast, easy project. Great stress release or a good project to share with children. Easy enough for them to enjoy but complex enough to look professional.

Becky Holliday

Landscape Scene Board: I am making a 1:9 "scene board." This is to show a second in time for a model horse competition. I am planning a slight hill down to a "stream" and then back out of the dip up a slightly steeper hill with a trail. This will be on a one fourth of a sheet of plywood. I have bought foam board for insulating houses and have just started trying to plan this out. It needs to be sturdy enough to be able to pick it up and move it but doesn't have to support a lot of weight as far as the model is concerned. Has anyone done anything like this? I know this sounds model railroadish but... I know some of you are really into the landscaping part too and I think you guys are just the greatest when it comes to imagination and figuring out how to realistically create things in miniature!

Does anyone have an idea of sites on the web that deal with this sort of thing or of books I could get my hands on quickly? I am thinking that I need to kind of cut and glue the foam together to be the base and was planning on using papier-mâché to make it smooth over the foam, then do the model railroad landscaping products to flesh it in with grass and trees and such.

Nan Sawyer in Greenville, SC

Landscape Scene Board: Your plans in using the foam board and paper mache are right on the money. If you are planning to move it around much, I would recommend that you use a base of 1/4" plywood or something similar. You don't want to be moving it around and break off a corner or anything.

Depending on how deep you need your water, you can use the two-part resins (you can use plastic wrap to give extra texture in streams) or even clear hot glue.

Sonia

Landscape Scene Board: a couple of years ago I took a class where we covered Styrofoam with caulking (Spackle) and made an adobe house. It dries light weight so would make moving your board around a lot easier. We spread the caulking over the foam with a knife and let it dry. You can smooth it by using a wet paint brush before it dries. Paint the caulking and then you can put your landscaping material on it. Don't forget to glue the foam to the board and use wood screws (dipped in glue before inserting) to insure that the foam doesn't come loose from the board.

Vee on Lake Travis

Landscaping: I did help out on Building of the White House...I was given several tasks. One was to use a Dremel to drill holes, drip in glue and insert colored grasses. They look wonderful when mixed and staggered in height. Be sure to choose a time of year and stick to it so it looks natural. In other words, NO IRIS in FALL Scenes!

Laurie Sisson

Cattails: As to the cattails, if you are doing this in 1" scale, my method is to wrap floral tape around the wire first (with upper edge of tape about 1/8" from tip of wire), keeping edges lined up to make the "fat" part of the cattail - not quite 1/16" in diameter or so, paint brown, then flock. I prefer this as the flocking alone didn't seem quite "fat" enough.

Sonia

Cattails: I used floral wire for the stems. I rolled some self curing clay into small (tapered at both ends) "cat tails') and skewered them onto the bits of florist's wire. For the leaves, those long slender cat tail leaves; I took green ribbon and cut off a length that would correspond to the length of the leaf. I folded this piece of "leaf" in half; lengthwise. With a pair of scissors I cut the leaf shape for half of the leaf so that when I unfolded the length of ribbon I had symmetrical leaves. This was then glue to the base of the florist's wire "stem" of the cat tail . I added sufficient leaves to make the cat tail look like a cat tail. The bottom of the cat tail stem was stuck along the edge of the pond where cattails would be.

DrBob

Pond: The pond (as I made it) was made of clear DAP caulking. This caulking can be smoothed over prior to setting by simply wetting your finger and smoothing the surface of the caulking. I painted the surface under the pond; this was a dark blue/green at the center (deepest part) and made lighter as the "water " got shallow toward the edges. Remember the caulking is clear.. Hope I helped and did not confuse. I chose caulking over resin because the caulking cost about $5.00 a cartridge at Home Depot as against $15-$20. for resin.

DrBob

Cat Tails: Broom straws dipped in brown flocking make beautiful cat tails. Don't forget to dilute your white glue to a 50/50 mix of water and glue. Before the cat tail dries, gently scrape any flocking off the tip. This small touch makes all the difference in authenticity. Preserved Monkey Grass, split with the tool used to split paper ribbon makes wonderful leaves. Remember to avoid the deep green, use the lighter or buff tone for a truly authentic feel.

Becky Holliday

Cattails for competition board: remember that these cattails are going to be bigger than what most miniaturists are dealing with. For 1" scale (Trads are bigger), I use a stiffer, cloth covered floral wire, 4" long & put a ½" Fimo cattail on the wire. Then bake & I use brown flock or brown chalk dust on them to finish. cattails would come up to approximately the horses shoulder so you have to measure for wire length & I would use a cattail head of at least 3/4" length. Plaster cloth might be easier to make your sloping hillsides. Crumple newspaper & glue to board, than use plaster cloth over the top to smooth the valley out a bit. Seal the plaster cloth with a fine spray of shellac, etc.

Mary Lou in Middleburg Hts., OH