Planter from champagne cage wire: I've molded needlepoint canvas over a liter soda bottle cap, glued the resulting basket to the top circle of wire, and painted it to make a fern planter. 

Loretta.Sniarowski

Ants for Picnic: What about gluing tiny black seed beads along a doubled strand of black embroidery floss?  You can cut the ends of the floss for antennae & stiffen them with a little diluted white glue.

Havana (FL) Holly

Garden Hose: To make your own garden hose, go to Radio Shack or anywhere else that sells plastic covered wire for electronic use. Get the green-or another color if you like. Cut an appropriate length of wire. Either roll it in a coil with the wire for support, or try to strip out the wire.

Martha Simpson

Garden Hose: To make a hose I use wire that has a green plastic covering or you could paint some green. You could probably purchase green wire in the gardening section of a hardware store. To make the nozzle, use the end of a biro.

Karen from Dubai

Garden Hose: Go through your findings or go to the fabric store and get a grommet (those little metal things like a crownless hat that are inserted into belt holes to strengthen them). Then look through your medicine chest and glue supplies for an expired bottle with a very fine nozzle; cut away the rest of the bottle. Paint these pieces a matching brass color. Look around the hardware store to find plastic-coated wire the right diameter to fit inside the grommet, preferably green. Buy about 18 inches. Glue the grommet, quot;brim" side out to one end, the nozzle to the other. Coil around a paint bottle, tying raffia if necessary to hold shape.

If you don't have grommets, they have enough uses to justify buying a small box. Glued to the top of a fancy bead, they make the cup for a candleholder. Cut and paint a skewer slightly less than the width of your bathroom, slide a curtain onto it, put a grommet on each end brim side out, glue the grommets to the walls, voila, your shower curtain has been hung. Punch a paper crown for the grommet hat and use with pompoms or q-tips pulled off the stick to make tiny snowmen with top hats, etc.

Loretta Sniarowski

Garden Hose: I assume that the hose will remain in its coiled or what ever position it is placed in; therefore; Ideas;
1. Very thin rope of clay with "brass" spray nozzle
2. Appropriate thickness of wire, painted garden hose green.
3. Cotton twine (appropriate thickness) wet with glue so it can dry in the position you want and then paint.

Dr. Bob

Garden Hose: Cut bell wire in green or white to the length you want (20 inches looks best) remove green covering with a razor blade for the 2 ends (about 1/4 inch.) Using the barrel clasp from jewelry cut the jump rings off with wire cutter and glue end of wire through the tiny hole in each end of clasp with crazy glue (one side is a male and the other female fittings.) Let dry and roll hose around a medicine bottle and voila - Garden hose!

Gail

Mission Tile House: I have posted some pictures so you can see what I have been talking about with my mission tile house... This is a scene made using a full sized mission roof tile as the main wall of the setting. The hardest part was cutting out the door and window openings on the tile. Because of the curve of the tile and where the openings were situated, I couldn't use my jewelry saws or the tile saws that fit into a hacksaw. I ended up using a tile drill, drilling holes all around the openings and then breaking the remainder out and filing smooth. Now that I am getting the hang of it, I will have to make more. I have included a close up of the tile roof and floor I made using the air dry terra cotta clay. I sponge painted the roof tiles a bit to make them look old and mossy. There is also a close up of the front door entryway. The interior has been coated with joint compound to add texture and then painted. I plan on adding a few chairs and tables, but this will mostly be a flower shop, so furnishings will be sparse. Not sure what to "store" in the small attic area... maybe buckets or cardboard boxes of vases...? I will also be adding plants to the window shelf, shutters and a window frame to the window opening and some other architectural details. I am also going to paint a flowery sign on the outside by the door. If you have any other great ideas for me, just let me know and I'll see what works.

Here is the link (first 4 pictures in the album)
http://albums.photopoint.com/j/AlbumIndex?u=345686&a=4165987&f=0

The best part of this project was the cost. The tiles were given to me, and I used scrap lumber, so the only thing I actually had to purchase was the air dry clay and some joint compound. I love inexpensive projects that use up my leftover stuff. And a great tip I discovered while I was doing some plants, the air dry clay makes great dirt to poke your plants into. Fill the pot with the clay, add a drop of white glue and top with some railroading dirt, poke your flowers in, and the clay will harden and hold your plants great.

MAP in Puyallup

Miniature Landscaping: I use the foam insulation panels sold in most hardware stores. They are large, easy to work with, inexpensive and have wonderful texture. I glue them to 1/4" plywood base. I seal the finished elevations with a thin layer of plaster.

Becky

Strobe light: Radio Shack (on their web site) sell a small strobe light kit.

Tom and Kari

Strobe: Not sure if this is exactly what you want, but I just saw an "electronic beacon flasher" in Micro-Mark Catalog. You might check their website http://www.micromark.com or call them 1-800-225-1066.

Grace Shaw

ready cut paper leaves: Great news for those of you who want to make flowers, but don't want to invest in all the punches, and can't see cutting billions (well, hundreds, but it will *seem* like billions, won't it?) of leaves or petals by hand! I just got a wonderful brochure from my friend Gerry Warner, of Warner's Miniatures with laser cut leaves and petals! You get the special Japanese paper, full instructions and the required wire, at a really decent price. She's got Columbines, Delphiniums, a great Fern, Hollyhocks, Foxgloves and a Phalaenopsis Orchid. Supplies like wire, extra paper and tweezers are also available. Okay, so you didn't get flowers for Mother's Day, you show them, make your own! You can contact Warner's Miniatures at warnersminiatures@erols.com. They don't have a website yet, but we may put a small addition on to http://weevings.com so you can see these, and the great wooden toys Marsh, the other half of Warner's does. Stay tuned!

Bonni in NH

Croquet sets: Gulliver's Emporium makes a wonderful croquet set. I love mine. http://www.ewol.com/~per/gulliver/

Anne Gerdes

Green Carnations: I'm sure that most of you remember how to make the tissue flowers we made for our mommies when we were little? Making these is the same principle! First, cut lengths of green floral wire, a thin gauge, into pieces about 1 1/4" long, one for each flower you want to make.

Cut strips of white tissue paper (the kind that's used to wrap gifts) about 1/2" wide by 1 1/2" long.

Layer three strips, and pleat the paper and then wind a tiny length of green wire around the pleated piece at the center to secure it tightly.

Fluff up the paper to form the flower. You may need to experiment a bit with this. Some people like to rip their paper along a straight edge for a less 'cut' looking edge. After creating the blossom, glue the center of it to the stem with Tacky glue.

Now, here's the neat part! Using a green magic marker, touch the edges of the petals. If you do this right, the color will bleed down into the flower, making it look just like those carnations they dye green for St. Patrick's Day!

You could also do this with red, for Valentine's Day, or experiment with other colors! Have fun!

Alice Zinn

Here's how I make "potting soil"... I collect scoops of sand and gravel from anywhere I can find it.Use a fine strainer to sift it until you get really minute grains. Put your fine sand on a paper plate and add a couple drops of acrylic paint.

Burnt umber makes a nice rich potting soil. Use whatever you have on hand. If you are potting cacti, use a lighter color. I use a finger to rub the paint and sand into a uniform paste. Spread a small portion out thinly on the plate and let dry. On another plate or tile, mix the larger amount of sand with some tacky glue until you get a good stiff

"mortar". I use this to fill pots and containers. It should be stiff enough to support plant stems as you arrange them. When this as set a little, dab some tacky glue on the surface of the soil and sprinkle some of the dark grains on top, letting them pile up in a fluffy manner. It will resemble freshly potted potting soil.

Kathy in Wisconsin

Hanging Greenhouse plants - I took a tip from my real greenhouse when hanging plants. I extended a pole the length of my lean-to greenhouse ,suspending the pole from the hip roof the whole length of the green house and hung the plants on the pole. You could either use wire on each end and attach it to the roof or use wire on either end of the "pole" the length of the greenhouse. Plants would be moveable, temporary and the pole can be removed eventually. The pole can be a straw, stiff wire, coated bell wire, or dowel. They are all light weight.

Gail

Leaves: I have made lots of leaves by painting pieces of tracing paper. (Get the good vellum kind.) I usually use some combination of Sap Green, and then a lighter and a darker green, or greens. The trick to making realistic leaves is to do them in several colors, never just one. Make puddles of paint on, say, a piece of waxed paper, or plastic wrap, or whatever you like to use for a palette. Lay the puddles close together, but not so close that they mix. With a large, flat brush, drag through a color, and paint a swath of green on your paper...(Oh, did I tell you that it really helps to tape the paper down to your table by the corners? No? Well, it does...because when you start painting a whole sheet of paper, that paper wants to curl right up.) Continue painting your paper with the different colors of green, laying the colors side by side...mixing some with the others, leaving some pure...you can also mix with a little yellow...white. You want to have a whole sheet of painted paper which has many colors of green. Let dry, and, then if you want to have shiny leaves, paint a layer of ModPodge Matte on the paper. (Matt sounds like it should BE matte, but it's not...it's somewhat shiny...just enough, I've found, for shiny leaves.) Un-tape your paper, flip it over, tape it down again, and repeat the above steps. Now you will have a whole sheet of various greens to use. You can now cut leaves out with scissors, or use a punch. Voila! And, you will have enough paper to make approximately a million leaves, depending on the size, of course.

Kaye in LA

Laser Cut Plants: Linda, sorry I didn't think to add the snail mail address for Warner's Miniatures laser cut paper flower leaves and petals. You can reach them at:
Warner's Miniatures
P.O. Box 44
Lambertville, NJ 08530-0044

Bonni in NH

Bird Nest: You can use dried moss, the decorative kind that is put in potted plants, to make a nice birds nest. The process is a bit messy, but yields nice results, I suggest working on top of some waxed paper or a paper towel. Take a small amount of the moss and knead in some Tacky glue...just a tiny bit, until the moss is almost saturated. Shape the moss/glue blob over the end of a dowel or some other object of the right size which you have first covered with plastic wrap or waxed paper. Pop it off and allow to dry. You might want to glue in a bit of the moss, (not the kind saturated with the glue) at the bottom of the nest. If you want eggs, make them from polymer clay.

Alice Zinn- Pt. St. Lucie FL

Moss: To adhere your moss, just apply a little tacky glue with a small paintbrush where you want it to stick. When dry, spray a little cheap hair spray on it.

Sloan