Most natural foliage can be kept by spraying with a mixture of glycerine and alcohol.

Tom Berkner

Topiary: Use a bamboo stick for the stem, and small styrofoam ball for top. Then visit a RR store or dept store and use their landscaping material in different coarseness and colors. Glue on small flowers from paper punches if you desire a blooming topiary.

Lisa Lynn

Lavender: Lavender can be made very easily. Have the real plant next to you as the colours are the most important aspect of making it look real. Take green florists wire and dip the end into Tacky glue. Roll in poppy seeds. When dry paint with the lavender colour paint. Set aside. Take lycopodium and paint it with the silvery green colour. Plant it into your planter and then add your flowers, which must be positioned slightly higher than the leaves if you check out nature.

Barbara B

Dry flowers in the microwave using regular table salt instead of silicon. Put a layer of salt in a dish, layer the flowers over it, then cover gently and completely with more salt. Microwave for 30 seconds. Check one of the flowers. If still not fully dry, try another 20 or 30 seconds, repeat until done. The more delicate the flower, the faster it will dry. Let the salt cool and remove the rest of the flowers. Don't use salt for cooking; discard or label and keep to use for flower drying only.

Loretta Sniarowski

Orchid baskets are really easy to do. They could be done with 1/16 square strip wood for small baskets and larger for big ones if you like. Cut the strips the size you want for the baskets (In orchids that could be from under 1/2 inch to 1") it will go easier if you use graph paper in one of those plastic folders. Put down some double sided tape to hold your bottom pieces in place. They should have a small space between them so the "water" can drip out. Now take 2 pieces and put glue on one side of the first one and glue it across the ends of your slats. Then repeat on the other side. Repeat the process but just put glue on the ends from here on out. keep stacking like this on ends until you have it as high as you want it. Usually a bit over 1/4"" on the small ones and up to 1/2" on the large ones. Cut 4 pieces of thin wire the length you want for a hanger. Before you put on the last 2 pieces, drill a small hole in the corners of these (if they are large enough to drill). Run wire through them and twist the wires where you bring them together to make a hook, fill with a bit of moss or coffee grounds and plant your orchids. If the wood pieces are too small to drill you can incorporate the ends of the last 2 layers of wood strips and secure the wire around them.

Fill with a bit of moss and/or coffee grounds etc and plant your plants. You can also make large hanging pots by cutting a ping pong ball in half and using it or you can get a smaller ball and make a press mold and then just press the Fimo in it or you can buy wooden pots and drill them for hangers. Remember, too, many plants are "planted" by wiring their roots to pieces of wood with a bit of moss over them and they grow that way (especially orchids and tropical plants).... Lastly you can pay a chunk and buy new ones with hangers from me or other dealers.

Anita McNary-Haynes

Waterfalls: I have seen narrow strips of clear/irridescent mylar (like you would use in a gift bag for "wrapping") draped from the top level of a waterfall to the lower level. I have not done it myself, but it looked pretty good.

Chris in Minnesota

Waterfalls: Cut various width strips of clear plastic wrap (Reynolds, SaranWrap, etc) the length of the entire waterfall. With small dabs of glue (make sure it will dry clear), attach the strips at the top of the "falls" and the bottom of the "falls" or pool area where the water will flow to. Let the glue dry completely before pouring any resin. Install all your plants, rocks, cattails, whatever, before pouring any resin and let them dry also. When you are ready to pour your first resin layer, start at the top of your "falls" and gently let the resin follow the clear plastic strips down into the pool. Do it slowly, and you may need to "help" the resin cover the plastic strips completely on their way down. Let some of the resin begin to form into its "jelly" (thicker) stage, and plop some along the plastic also....it will be thick enough so that it won't run all the way down into the pool area. Just keep doing this with subsequent resin pourings, until you have the flowing water effect you desire.

Laura in OKC

Waterfalls: Use a strip of Saran wrap and kind of "soft-fold" it and glue it (stretched out with "soft pleats" going down) to top and bottom of your display. Then paint or pour resin over the plastic. Be sure to add some "splash" at the bottom (perhaps some crinkled Saran wrap covered with resin, and of course a few clear bead "bubbles".) If you want a "foamy" splash, try whipping up some melted white wax and dropping that at the bottom of the splash.

Viola Williams

Paper Flowers: The flowers are made with paper punches, using modified instructions from Ruth Hanke's books. Ruth is from Blue Earth, MN and uses the business name Hanky Panky. She advertises in the Dollhouse Miniatures mag. The flowers are easy to make but quite time consuming. While visiting Chris in MN a few weeks back, we worked many hours to create 2 dozen sunflowers, 20 or so Iris, and a few mums. They all turned out great, so it was worth the effort. We adapted some of her instructions to use inexpensive punches or other materials. For example, the inexpensive craft store-maple leaf punch makes good geranium leaves if you snip off the pointy ends of the leaf - much cheaper than a custom punch or laser cut leaves. Also, onion grass from the craft store can make great inexpensive iris leaves and they look great.

Bonnie GIbson

Christmas Trees and Depth Problems- There's a way to make a Christmas tree (or an outdoor evergreen) that reduces the depth problem, though it's easier to start by describing the full version: Just glue equal-length branches of pipe-cleaner type material ("pine stems," etc.) to a cardboard cone. It's the cone, not the length of the branches, that determines the overall shape of your tree. Fiddle around with scrap paper until you settle on a final version.

Cut cone to desired size from dark or painted cardboard, including a tab to glue under the opposite side. Shape the cone with your hands, but flatten it out again for gluing on branches. Cut a bunch of branches roughly five-eighths of an inch long. Turn about three-eighths of an inch at right angles; the short leg is glued to cone. Note: the needles MUST grow toward the tip of the branch, or they'll look weird. With E-6000 glue start at the bottom and glue branches densely onto the card, leaving a bit of space at both sides. When most of branches are stuck on, glue the cone into shape; use clips as necessary to hold while drying. Don't worry about the hole at top. When dry, fill in gaps and top, and prune as necessary.

As for the shallow-space version: Make a narrow cone with tabs on both sides, and glue these onto a flat back.

Mary (Oregon)

Making hills - Get some 2 inch thick foam insulation board at a home improvement place like Home Depot. This is used for insulating real houses and comes in a 4' x 8' sheet for about $20. It is easy to cut with a sharp kitchen knife and can be glued together with Liquid Nails, a construction cement that comes in tubes. You'll need a caulking gun to dispense it. Also get some bamboo skewers to hold everything together till the glue dries.

Cut the foam to the general shape and glue it. Final shaping can be done after the glue dries. When you have everything shaped, you will want it cover it with a thin layer of Clay Mache. When that dries, I use Creative Paper Clay to form the rocks and strata and the stream bed. For water, I use Enviro-Tex Lite, a two part resin and put it on in thin layers of about 1/8 inch. Before the last layer is completely set up, I texture it to look like moving water and use a little white paint after it dries for foam.

For ground cover; grass and small plants. You can use either AMSI ground foam or Woodland Scenics foam. I prefer AMSI since it doesn't deteriorate with age.

Rik Pierce

Weeping Willow: Don't weep for a willow, make one! Get yourself a big branch, either from your yard or a floral supply place or craft store. Buy some shredded foam foliage in spring green in a model railroading or miniature shop. Drag thread through tacky glue, then through the foam. Hang from the branches of your trunk, and voila! Instant (after a lot of work) weeping willow!

Alice Zinn

Saw Dust: I think sawdust is the raw material for an innumerable amount of things. Here are some. Saw dust:

1. Can be strained through a piece of screen, kitchen sieve, old spice shaker bottle, etc. to get different textures.
2. Can be mixed together in different natural colors to make a variety of dirt, mulch, ground covers. Easier than coffee or tea.
3. Can be put into a plastic bag with a little diluted paint (Greens, browns, blacks.) Fold the top down carefully so air stays in the bag and shake until color is distributed as you like. Add more paint if needed. Lay out on waxed paper and stir around as it dries. If you used a lot of paint, you may have to put it into a new bag and shake again before it's dry to avoid clumping. Make different shades of grass, which you mix together in different combinations for landscaping.
4. Use bigger bits for rough grass, bushes or tree greenery. Just like the bagged materials from the hobby shop.
5. Watch as you drill any item, for the results can be interesting, in wood or plastics. I've gotten mini foods like cooked red cabbage and parmesian cheese from my drilling tails.

Janine in Prescott, WI

Tomato Plants: We used to make and sell tomato plants for the garden.....we now do food and accessories....and leave the plants and flowers to better gardeners. First, fill the pot with fimo or other base material to "plant" in. Cover with dark brown railroad "dirt". Cut a 1/8" dowel rod to the height needed to extend about 1/4" above your finished plant and put in the center of the pot. "Plant" sprigs of pepper grass (found in the dried flower dept of the craft shop or florist shop) around the stake. Make the tomatoes from red fimo, put a little star shape of green on the top and poke a tiny hole in the top with a wire and bake. Take green florist wire and bend into a shepherd's crook. Glue the tomato to the end of the crooked wire and let dry. "Plant" your tomatoes in among the sprigs of pepper grass. Use a single strand of embroidery thread to "tie up" the tomatoes and then spray the whole thing with a light spray of matte sealer to keep the pepper grass from drying out and falling apart.

Kathie, J & K Miniatures

Dried flowers, honesty pods for fairies, etc: Look to your local weeds and garden plants. Deconstructing and drying flat between weights gives you the tiniest prettiest flowers and leaves to use in mini pictures, fire screens etc.

Most outrageous, because so tiny, is the "hairy forget-me-not" weed. TOTALLY not garden worthy, teeny forget-me-not flowers a fifth the size of the real McCoy but perfect for our uses.

Also dry Queen Anne's Lace, aka cow parsley, individual florets.

Any small creeping weed, sometimes can give flowers of surprising impact once dried.

A garden plant worth drying is the individual flowers, so teeny and small, on the flower heads of alchemilla mollis aka lady's mantle.

Use these flowers, once dried, to make flat floral arrangements. They are also good as pictures, fire screens etc.They are historically accurate from 1750s onwards in GB.

Take the stems of dock plants once the seeds have fallen. There are stems with tiny structures to hold the seeds, which look so good with these tiny dried flowers stuck on - real fantasy plants.

Helen Cottrell

Drying Flowers: To dry flowers, I have used clear life by Design Master. It is an American product. I have used it for years. Dry your flowers and spray them with this product. I have kept dry flowers for years with this product, especially the tiny ones.

Gisele Nadeau

Greenery Preservation: The silica crystals are wonderful for some things, but due to the fragility of some items, when you pull it out of the crystals, they disintegrate. So, thanks to Sue Thwaite, I now use a mixture of 1 part glycerine to 3 parts plain old rubbing alcohol. Mix it together and put it a spray bottle. Spray the intended item til its nice and wet...not drippy, and set it aside. I preserve a lot of moss and lichen this way. It makes it soft and easy to work with. If you've got the silica and you get the glycerine/alcohol mixture, you can preserve just about anything. Oh! Glycerine is available at any drug store for about 3.50 for a 4 oz bottle. Cheap and effective!

Carrie McKinley

Tinting Glycerinized Flowers: Carrie described flower preservation by spraying on a glycerine/alcohol mix. My only experience with glycerine was some years back, sticking stems into a water mix. Carrie's approach is probably quicker. But one thing is probably the same: glycerinized material seems to need to exhale. Apparently coating it with acrylic paint causes crumbling from within. I had very good luck, though, patting glycerinized Queen Anne's Lace with permanent-type felt-tips. The ink seems to soak right in. Some QAL that I stuck on a straw hat kept color for about five years, and then let me brighten it up again without going to pieces.

Mary (Oregon)

Orchid bark - I had to laugh about using a food processor for Fimo: I ruined one with Fimo! Now my ex-coffee grinder is being used to grind real orchid bark for my tiny orchid pots. When the orchid bark is small enough, I mix it with white glue and a few drops of water and carefully spoon it into the pots. If you don't put a few drops of water in, the glue will dry shiny.

Mary Kinloch

Big tree: I had an old set of battery booster cables which I stripped the covering from, leaving a fat wire of twisted copper wires. I cut a rather long piece of it and used it full size at the trunk and bottom of the tree area. I separated the wire and formed roots to run out from the tree and twisted them into separate roots, not making them exactly even in size. Then I started on the top....separating to lots of limbs, and with each group of wires for a single limb, I separated parts of it into smaller branches and continued the procedure until I had a full size big tree with lots of branches and a full trunk and roots which I could spread out to make the tree stand up. I placed this on a base for the birthday scene I was making and flocked it well with various shades of the "green stuff" you purchase in a hobby store or train store.

Katherine