Marsha, Newark, CA

Topiary: Suzy wanted to know how to anchor topiary tree armatures in the planters. This can be done by using Crayola Model Magic, paper mache, plaster of Paris, or regular air-drying clay. When the topiary trees are finished, paint the top of whatever you use to anchor the trees in the pots with brown paint and, when dry, glue dried coffee grounds or dried tea leaves on for dirt. Hope this helps.

Mary in MS

Topiary: This is where I really love paper clay, because it air dries. I put glue on the inside of a pot, stuff it with paper clay, spread glue around the top, stick my plants, wire frame, whatever, through the paper clay, and then spread model railroad 'dirt' on top of the white clay. It seems to hold whatever I have stuck through it without any muss or fuss.

Kaye in LA

Topiary: I made a whole bunch of topiary trees for a swap last month. I bought wooden plant pots in the craft department at Wal Mart and I painted them with terra cotta paint so that they would look like clay pots. While the paint dried I went out to my grape arbor and cut little "trunks" for my trees. I made my trees by gluing foam greenery onto little Styrofoam balls that I had glued the trunks into. When they were all finished I filled the pots with caulk, sprinkled greenery on it and stuck the trunk into the caulk. It takes a long time for the caulk to set up but that wasn't a problem because the trees were already done and I didn't have to mess with them while they were drying. I found that spices from my spice rack also look great as "ground cover" and "foliage". Well, there you go. Another way to make topiary trees stay in their pots.

Mary Lou from Florida

Precut paper flowers: Diane - for paper petals try Hanky Panky Crafts at http://www.hankypankycrafts.com/

Mary in Minneapolis

Mother-in-law tongue plants: One of my mini club members graciously taught us to make them out of dark to medium green twist ties with the wire up the length, the kind that you get with plastic bags in the grocery produce section. You cut one end to a long point, then dry-brush faint horizontal white or yellowish stripes across the width of the tie, then paint the edges with a very narrow line of the same white or yellowish color. Do 6 or 7 of these. After they dry, twist slightly into almost corkscrew shapes, then stick into a lump of clay in a pot or vase. and you're done! Very easy, and they look very realistic.

Terri Rowe

Mother-in-law tongue plants: I am making some mother-in-laws tongues myself...but not from fimo. Here are the basics as how I am doing it.....

1) Take a piece of floral tape about 3" long, and fold it in half (so that it is 1 1/2" long). Open it back up and paint on some glue with a paint brush.

2) Cut a piece of thin wire about 3" long - some will be trimmed when you assemble the plant.

Lay the wire between the two folds of floral tape - but not to the end.

Leave an inch or so with no wire. Put into a piece of foam to let dry partially (about 10 minutes).

3) With small scissors, cut the floral tape to the length desired and to the correct shape. Then, round the leaf lengthwise around a small object....I used my pinky. Put back into the foam and let dry completely.

4) Using paint thinned with water, add the details of the leaves....look at the ones around your house for ideas. Let dry.

Then, its just a matter of assembling the plants...again, you have several for inspiration.

Hope this helps! So far, mine look good. And, they're much thinner than what I could have done with Fimo.

Sloan

Mother-in-law's tongue: Also known as Sansevieria or even Snakeskin plant.

I made one using wire, masking tape, air drying clay, fine railroader's dirt (the gravel the railroader hobbyists use for landscaping), little pot, paint and glue.

1. Cut a piece of masking tape and fold it over a length of wire, leaving some wire sticking out.

2. Trim the masking tape into "sword-like" leaves.

3. Paint the leaves to match the variety you wish to emulate and let dry.

4. fill pot with air drying clay to just under the rim.

5. Paint top of clay with glue, and dip into the railroader's dirt.

6. apply a little tacky glue to wire sticking out of leaf, and insert it into the pot.

7. allow to dry overnight.

I like the masking tape better than clay because it is a lot thinner and a little more realistic. I believe I used two colors of green (one dark, one lighter) and a cream on mine.

Kim in Canada

Mother-in-law's tongues: Same method as has been suggested for masking tape but a different material!

I use micropore surgical tape for some plants and flowers, including m-i-l-t's

It absorbs acrylic colour beautifully - if you thin the paint, you can get a translucent effect in flower petals.

- For thicker leaves, just use two or more layers of tape.

- Varnish with matt varnish to get the soft sheen on the leaf.

Striped-edge variety looks even more realistic if you include a couple of small leaves which have reverted to pure green without the edge. Or make a few "wounds" in the edges of leaves where somebody has bashed them - I like life in the dolls house to reflect the reality in my real house!

Chris in Scotland

Fimo Mother in Law's Tongue: With a photo or real plant sitting in front of you, mix a ball of each of the different greens you see in the plant. Roll each of the green balls out flat and stack them all in the order you see the colors on the leaves. The height of this stack when pressed together should be the width of the leaves. From this stack cut out a rectangle a bit longer the longest leaf. With the vertical lines of green facing you shape the top of the rectangle so it goes to a point. Slice off the individual leaves using a straight blade or one of the longer blades available for slicing fimo from a hobby shop. Shape the leaves as they look on the plant and bake individually. Once baked stand the grouping of leaves in a some plasticine in a pot and cover the top with old coffee grounds.

Jean Day

Plants: just use the same basic principle as for the MIL tongues for whatever foliage plant you want -- same shape cut with fringed edges makes ferns, or cut the tape to the shape of the leaf you want to copy (helps to have a real one as a "model").

For blooming plants, I like poppies. Good way to use up office scraps when we use red pages as section dividers. Use a dead ballpoint or dull needle to make the red punches cupped. Make a round loop on one end of a piece of wire and blob some tacky glue into the loop. Arrange about 7 punch petals around the loop. Let it dry, then blob another bit of glue over the center and shake on some poppy seeds or black sand (I've used seeds with no bug problems, but the plants are in a sealed glass container). Use bits of green deer moss or air fern as the foliage.

Same principle of recycling round punches can make irises -- cup six petals, cut a wire and wrap the end in another punch for a stamen. Put a line of glue around the bottom of the stamen. Glue three of the cupped petals facing toward the stamen. Let dry and glue the other three petals facing down, away from the previous three. Cut a batch of MIL type leaves and paint them a solid pale green. Stick Iris(es) in pot, stick leaves around outside, and you're done.

Loretta Sniarowski

Hot Tub: I plan to put a hot tub on the redwood deck of the dh I am constructing. I found a black bowl....actually a "Rice Bowl" meal from the frozen food section. This bowl had "seats" around the bottom of the bowl and looks to be the perfect size to set in a wood frame for my hot tub. I can't beat the price either! It's a micro wave dish and using a hot ice pick and some rivets like "eyelet rivets for sewing", I can easily install the jets.

Katherine

Front opening houses: Landscaping a front opening house is a challenge if you want more than a lawn. My dh, the RGT Hawthorne, has one front section that opens. I made the flower bed in front of it separately on a piece of foam core that I can just lift up and remove when I open that section.

Harriett- Framingham, MA

Side Opening Houses: I am working on a 1/2 scale which has opening sides. To overcome the problem of landscaping, I had a basement built underneath it. The basement is 'pegged' to the main house, so that it could be removed, if need be. In addition, there's a 1 1/2 " base under the basement, which I will paint as foundation. This allows any windows in the basement to be a little above ground and allows room for landscaping terrain. I will build up the main base of the house with styrofoam, PaperClay, etc. for the landscaping.

Jonesy

Sunflower centers: I saw this somewhere; for the centers, use brown Fimo, and then use a piece of nylon stocking to make the seeds.

Kaye in L.A.

Plants: http://www.miniaafrica.co.za/mini/plants/default.htm  - Mini Africa: where the artisan from Africa has crafted some incredible plants.  Included is one of "the saddest, most bedraggled plants that anyone can imagine."  Check it out if you want to see excellent plant craftsmanship.

Wanna in El Paso

Palm Trees: When we made the armatures for our willow trees, we did something similar but we used masking tape and painted it. First we taped together several wires of a similar length. We made several of these in different lengths. Then taped together the different bundles with the longest in the center and the shorter ones around it. We wrapped several layers of masking tape around them all for bulk. I don't see why you couldn't score this lightly and paint the appropriate colors.

Rusty

Palm Trees: I did make one yesterday, and it turned out so well that my fellow club members want me to teach them how to make them. I bundled up about 50, 26 gauge wire that is 10" long. Then, wrapped the wires with floral tape 9" from the base. I had 50 bare wires at the top. From those, I took two wires from the front of the bunch and taped those together, continuing around the bundle until all the wires were wrapped. Then, I painted a few sheets of tracing paper with Sap Green and Pine Needle Green, in a puddle, not mixed, so that there would be some variation in the colors. I let that dry, and then coated with matte Mod Podge. (Mod Podge gives the fronds a shine, and makes the paper stronger.)

I cut big, fat, sort of frond shaped leaves...about3" long by almost as wide...from the paper, folded each in half, and then fringed, as finely as I could with scissors. Then, I put Tacky glue on the stem, and a little tacky glue on the center of the leaves, and glued them together, starting with the outside and working towards the middle. Looked great, and very realistic.

For the trunk, I tore narrow strips of brown paper bags, and wrapped them around and around the trunk, gluing on the underside of the strips. (Kathy in E. TN has an idea here about using tiny pine cones, cut up and glued to the trunk, which I think is a really good idea!) My trunk, however, is one of the smooth ones...this one, anyway. To get some texture, while the brown paper and glue were still damp, I took a sharp pick and picked out little bits all over the trunk. Since this palm tree is for a special thing I'm making, it had to be small...but you could make it in any size by using longer, and more wires...adjusting the frond size, etc. (In fact, I had a request to try a 1/4" scale one for some quarter scale bungalows that club members are working on. These would also look great with Pamela Scott's "The Palms". See this on her Little Enough News web page under "Some things made by my friends and me." http://members.aol.com/daisy21/pam/index.html.

Other ideas I had while making this was to use dried corn silk for the fibrous stuff that many palm trees have...and to paint the outside fronds a straw color, and hang them almost straight down.

Kaye in L.A.

Paper Flowers: I have directions for some paper flowers.  Here is the grand debut of my site: http://members.aol.com/MAbate5877/index.html

Michelle A. in Boston

Punched Flowers: Punched flowers and other excellent landscaping instructions can be found here. http://www.geocities.com/Heartland/Woods/5223/miniatures.html

Karolyn, Plymouth, MA