Plants and flowers

I made my first miniature plants many years ago, when I first started miniature-making, and as with most other early endeavours, I cannot but find them pathetic although I was quite proud at the time. I have since made various flowers and plants, including a florist shop, which I still have although there is little left of the original flowers. I also once shared a long blog post about how it took me eight hours to make a geranium, which I carelessly titled "Why are handmade miniatures so ridiculously expensive?" One harsh comment to that post was: "If you ask this question there is no point explaining". Me: "Well, that's the point of my blog post". Opponent: "I don't read blogs" (that is, they only read the title). My point was that even with the minimum hourly wage and not even taking supplies into consideration, the true value of a miniature is far above the price you can ask for it. Unless, of course, you are Very Famous. 

I have made many geraniums since then; they do take a lot of time and effort, but it's fun and highly satisfactory, if you don't have to make a living out of them. 

I made many different flowers recently, and I will show some, explaining how I made them. I won't explain the geraniums again - read the old post, linked above. 

I also made some hydrangeas: the technique is more or less the same, although the flowers and the leaves are slightly different. 

Around Christmas, I made an amaryllis, which was a lot of work, but I was pleased with the result. 

I also made cyclamens and poinsettias, using my new set of punches, which of course makes life easier. 

That said, even with punches, it is a lot of work, because, as I explained in the geranium blog, each petal and leaf has to be moistered and crunched, otherwise they don't look natural, and some need a touch of paint to look real. 

For flower pots I mostly use recycled materials, such as bottle and toothpaste tube caps that I sometimes paint to resemble terracotta or whatever. Occasionally I have used wooden candle holders from hobby shops. 

I made some generic daisies, using sewing pins for stems, with the head painted yellow. 

I made quite a few generic plants out of various artificial flowers from thrift shops. They always have to be trimmed and painted, otherwise they don't look natural. (Perhaps they still don't look natural, but at least approximating natural). 

I made several bonsai trees, following a tutorial on YouTube. It is a lot of work. Wire for branches, covered with polymer clay and baked; then small ovals of organdy (I cut up a souvenir bag) covered, in this case, with moss cuttings, but you can also use shredded paper or thread. 

My son-in-law 3-D printed tiniest flower pots for me, just 1 cm tall, that I painted in terracotta and made teeny-tiny generic flowers as well as spider plants.

You need very small punches for this scale, and the leaves for spider plants I cut manually from coloured paper. 

My most recent horticultural achievement is a buxbom topiary. For it, as for some other plants, I made planters from egg cartons

It's fun making plants, and there is no limit for what you can make. I know I need to learn to make everything smaller still, so there is room for improvement.