Grass: I learned a wonderful technique taking Braxton Payne's 1/4" scale English Manor Greenhouse at Nationals a few years ago. In applying the loose green foam/grass, instead of putting down glue, instead paint a heavy wet coat of brown paint and then quickly sprinkle the grass. Be sure to mix several shades of the green together to give it a more realistic look. That way, with the brown paint rather than glue, if some doesn't stick or isn't as heavy, it will look like dirt showing through.

Jo

Easy Fringed Leaves: In mini-gardening, if you take care of the leaves, the flowers will pretty much take care of themselves. If you don't mind cheating a bit, there's an easy and relatively fast method for scads of house and garden plants that have a rosette of narrow, longish pointed leaves such as spider plants, wood hyacinths, daylilies, Siberian iris, ponytails, some palms, etc. You can make some flowers the same way. No talent required!

Basically, you make a fringe from paper, scissor-snip pointed ends, fold a narrow margin, and roll the whole thing up. Variations come from paper color and weight, length and width of individual leaves, and shaping.

To experiment, take a quarter-sheet of paper. Draw a line about an inch from one edge, perpendicular to the grain of the paper. This'll make leaves about an inch long. With the back of a blade, score another line about one-eighth inch behind it; later you'll fold here. Put a sharp new blade in your craft knife and make a cut from the penciled line to the edge of the paper.

Do a second cut close to this, and so on - in other words, make a fringe. As you play with this, it gets easier and easier to keep the cuts straight and pretty much the same size. Won't hurt if there are little gaps where you remove a piece that's way too narrow. Now fold along the line you scored; unfold; and cut the fringed strip free about a quarter-inch from the fold line.

Take small thin scissors and - here's the cheat- cut points from one edge of each leaf diagonally down to the other side. Is that totally obscure? I mean, instead of the points being in the middle of each leaf, it's on one side, requiring only one snip instead of two - and if the leaves are narrow and plentiful you can get away with this. Then fold up the hem and, with this on the inside, glue fringe to a stub of toothpick or stout wire and roll it up, adding glue as needed.

You can curl the leaves by stripping them between your thumb and a dull blade. If the plant looks top-heavy, try thickening the base by allowing more hem and folding it several times. For a sort of "fountain" effect, wind the fringe diagonally down the toothpick.  Or start with a wedge-shape bit of paper, and have shorter leaves growing around the outside edges of plant.

Mary

Paper plants and flowers: I use any kind of paper I find- tissue,crepe, writing, envelopes, packing, and the list is only as small as your imagination. Each paper seems to have a flower it lends itself to, so I experiment a lot. Sometimes a stiffer paper holds its shape better when you want to curl the petals.

Jeannine

For lawns: The easiest things are the "grasspaper" made for railroad layouts and the one for minis that is on 1/4" thick foam. If you are going to want to "plant" things, use a layer of foam core under the "grass."

Beth

Sidewalks: To make a realistic sidewalk, you can use real repair-type cement and mix some regular white glue into it...according to Noel Thomas!

Roz

Sidewalks: I used lightweight spackle (make lines while it is wet) and painted it a light gray color when dry. Easy to work with and it looks great when finished. Spackle also works great for that stucco look on houses.

Terri Young

Water: I am using a Plastic Water (comes in a sheet and is blue) that Plastruct puts out. You can get calm water, choppy water or stormy water. It cuts pretty well with scissors. I think they even make waterfalls. It can be purchased at some Hobby Stores or ordered direct from Plastruct. A sheet 7" x 11-3/4" sells for 7.50 for the calm water and 6.50 for stormy water. It can also be purchased clear.

Betty Martin

Garden Vegetables:. The best booklet I ever bought for making fruits and vegetables was "Bread Dough Fruits and Vegetables" by Barbara Meyer. I don't know if it's still in print - I bought mine over 15 years ago. I don't use bread dough - I use polymer clay - but the basic "how-tos" are fantastic for beginner or more advanced.

Since many vegetables don't ripen at the same times, to keep a garden realistic and identifiable put seed packets on sticks at the end of the rows. I think Farrow made sets of them, or if you have some real packets of seeds you could reduce them on a color copier.

Beverly Michie

Seed Packets: Jim Collins has a wonderful site and lots of printables. He even has seed packets for your vegetable garden! I also discovered wonderful Victorian can labels from Fran's Front Porch. You can find the printables at http://www.geocities.com/Heartland/Meadows/1832/

Earlene Lane

Natural Supplies: I came across this website through work. I have no connection, but I know the guy who runs this place has a good reputation. It is called Avatar's World and they sell, through the mail, all sorts of dried flowers, but also florist supplies in bulk and pine cones, different seed pods, mushrooms and ornamental grasses. No pictures because the site is under construction, but they do have an 800#. The address is www.avatarsworld.com. Hope this helps for those who are looking for these supplies.

Kathy Ostrander

Making Paper Plants: Years back, many of us learned to use an inexpensive office-type club punch to make geranium florets. Even though the punch-out has three rounded "petals" and one that's squared-off, it still works quite well both for small blossoms and for leaves. The McGill company seems to have replaced the old club die with a slightly bigger one; so much the better if you can lay hands on both. Hearts and diamonds (and the less-useful spades) were also in this series, as well as rounds in two or three sizes. Even now, I think you can find them for under $3. Craft stores carry McGill's new "Punchline" series (around $10), which includes a wavy-edge "blossom" and a crisply pointed star.

Fiskars is getting into the act, too. The squeeze-handle design of all these punches is desirable, because they'll handle card, foil, and thin veneers as well as paper. If these punches have a catcher for the bits of paper, take it off. Then pre-mark your paper (even pre-score with a ballpoint tool) and turn the punch over to center it over the markings. Much simpler than trying to add colors to all those tiny bits of paper. If you want to punch more than one sheet at a time, it's easier to separate the pieces if they're different colors.

But box-style punches have some virtues. The price is right, especially with sales and money-off coupons, and there are lots of designs. (For example, there's one with three different sizes of wavy-edge rounds: perfect for the biggest leaves at the base of the plant working up to smallest ones near the top.) One caution: be sure to keep your sales slip until you make sure a new punch cuts cleanly.

Mary (Oregon)

Mini plants: Someone (not me) is going to suggest that you use a bonsai in your terrarium! While that might work and would truly look like a mini tree, it might be tricky to keep it alive in that sort of setting. There are bonsai shops in your neck of the woods, I'll bet, and they might be able to suggest a plant that would thrive in dampness. I've been a bonsai hobbyist for years, but our conditions are completely different here in Arizona and what works for me probably wouldn't work in New York. Some plants you might consider: a small juniper, cheap and available at your local nursery, can be trimmed up to look like a tree if you choose it carefully (look at the main stem or trunk) and might work for you; another plant that springs to mind is bald cypress, which would look like a redwood tree and does love wet feet- they'll grow in standing water if they have to. Also, one of the small bamboo varieties would be happy in a terrarium. For any plants, you'll need a full-spectrum light in your aquarium/terrarium. These are advertised as plant lights and simulate daylight.

Pat

Paper punches for flowers and leaves: Try an office supply or stationery store. I got a 1/2" maple leaf and a tiny sun that makes nice sunflowers--about $5 each. They probably won't have really teensy flowers and leaves, though.

Lee

Cattails: Barb Plevan teaches this technique. Take thin wheat stalks (thin round toothpicks with a pointed end work too), add tacky glue to end and cover with brown flocking.

Anne Gerdes

Live Miniature Plants: Found some wonderful thymes- Wooley, English, Lemon, Silver, for starters. They have small leaves and will grow into a bush. I bought an Arenaria Balearica Corsican Sandwort which has the smallest little leaves. I looked it up and my Sunset book said it was a moss. It is a ground cover. Heather is a wonderful plant for miniature gardens. I have a bonsai book that tells about clipping the roots to keep plants small. This also keeps the leaves from getting full size. There are several rose bushes that do have 1/4" size flowers.

Barbara

Polymer Topiary:  There's a project for making delightful-looking little formal orange or lemon trees, and their pots, on http://www.polymerclaycentral.com. It's by Sue Heaser.

Mary

Peppergrass in various colors, for example, if you cut off the stems and kind of bunch up the tiniest clusters, looks a lot like succulents of one kind or another.(I have even made some from the individual peppergrass leaves.) Some tiny pinecones painted green also look like hens-and-chicks. Other dried blooms, seeds and pods resemble alpine-type plants and ornamental cabbages when painted. Speaking of natural greenery, there is a low-growing bush, which is found around here in the desert. It bears small yellow berries, which the members of a nearby monastery used to use in making asadero cheese and sold door-to-door in my old neighborhood. Years later, we were out playing around in the dunes when I spotted those dried berries on some low bushes. Running through the sand from bush to bush like a fool, I hollered, These look like tomatoes!These look like pumpkins! My husband indulgently helped me pick double handfuls and we brought them home. A few nights later I was in another room of the house and heard a tic-tic-tic-ing sound coming from my workroom and thought O no, mice! When I flipped on the light, nothing moved, then pop! Some of my dried potential pumpkins and tomatoes were exploding, spraying their tiny seeds everywhere! And yes, I used the exploded pods, as well. Painted, they look like everything from a tomato flower for tuna salad, to wedges of lemon, orange and grapefruit, even slices of avocado. I also used the seeds for something, although I've forgotten what. I still have painted tomatoes and pumpkins in some of my scenes, and people marvel at their realism.

Wanna

Ivy Leaves: Silverbirch trees' catkins (flower/seed thingie,) when pulled apart, contain mini ivy leaves - honest!

Sandra Monk

I have attached the "grass" that comes from the train shop by applying spray adhesive to the foam core area and sprinkling the "grass" across it. Tip the board and collect into newspaper what didn't stick. Then respray and sprinkle again any bare spots. My "grass" has held up for 4 years (so far).

Barbara Holmen

Sand: Another choice for white sand is a hobby shop where they have those "sand painting" kits...the type where you pour different layers of sand into a clear vase or jar, and layer the colors. Sometimes you stick brushes in for different "painting" effects. (Often seen at state fairs) Anyhoo, the sand is perfectly white, perfectly clean, and very fine - more "miniature?"

Bill Hudson