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. 

From coffee pods to flower pots

Some time ago I visited a friend who used coffee pods to make coffee. I have heard about them, and I have heard that miniature-makers find them useful, but I had never seen one. My friend was utterly perplexed when I asked whether I could collect the used ones. I wasn't sure exactly what I could make from them, because they are different from milk containers, slightly convex.

But I was sure that I would think of something, and I was also eager to show my friend what a valuable contribution to my miniature-making she had made. So this past weekend I started exploring the potential of used coffee pods.

My first thought was buckets, like I make from milk containers. The bottom can be easily bent inwards, and it doesn't matter that there is a hole. However, they have large brims that don't look natural for a bucket. Flower pots was the next option, and although they are twice the size of a 1:12 flower pot, I thought they could be planters or larger tubs.I wanted them to look like terracotta, but I am not very good at mixing paint. I should have added more red. Still, I was quite pleased.

While I was at it, I also painted a nasal spray bottle cap that had been waiting for this transformation for a long time. It is more like a flower pot in size and in shape.

Then of course I had to make plants. First of all, I made a simple fern, using florist wire and tape and painting the leaves with a lighter shade of green for effect. Then I constructed a weird plant from plastic Christmas decorations, but as I was passing the kitchen to clean my brushes, I suddenly saw that I had a plant with exactly that shape of leaves. (It is not my plant, so I am not on friendly terms with it). It also needed some painting, and the result was, if I may say so myself, stunning. I don't know the name of this plant so maybe someone can tell me. After that, I made the third plant by cutting up a 1:1 plastic twig.

For the smaller pot, I made a geranium. I will not describe the process because I have done it before, but I can confirm that it took about six hours and that the twelve stems contain 240 individual petals curled while wet one by one. Since I don't have my punches at the moment, I cut the leaves from florist tape and painted a bit here and there for variety.

So here is the result of my weekend:

Last in the picture is another milk canister I made from an eye-drop bottle.

This was a hugely productive weekend, don't you think?

Florist shop

If you have followed my blog for some time you may have noticed that I easily become obsessed by my projects. One time I made all kinds of things from junk jewellery and fans. Another time I spent a week or so making wooden crates. Or miniature books. Or candles. Or curtains. Or shoes. Or whatever. I don't make anything for sale, and I am not much interested in making many of the same, but I like to explore various ways of making the same or similar things.

A couple of weeks ago I started making some flowers and after making paper flowers I made some from oven-baked clay:

 

I was quite proud of them to begin with, but then I realised - it also so happened that I had bought real tulips for a friend - that tulips are always hidden in leaves, and I spent some time making leaves, using the technique I learned when making daffodils and irises:

You need to curl the leaves to make them look realistic. I found a foam-lined coaster that served the purpose, and I used my nail file, as suggested in the tutorial. Each flower needed four leaves, so it took some time.

These are the colours I happened to have. Tulips come in every imaginable colour, and some are multicolour or speckled, but I will save that for later.

I got so excited that I decided to make a florist shop. This coincided with an urgent need to glaze my room boxes, and in the process I dismantled my old tea shop to use the box for florist's. Once upon a time you could get wine boxes at wine merchants for a small donation to charity, but not anymore, because, I think, many shops and cafes use them for decoration. I know I can buy a room-box kit, but I am not there yet. I have made several environments in shoe boxes and small cardboard boxes, but wine boxes look so much neater.

I did try to put all flowers I had in a cardboard box. Mainly just to see whether I liked the idea. I dug up Poundland furniture that I once bought in great numbers for upcycling.

 I liked the idea, but I definitely felt I wanted to use a wine box.

I tore down the wallpaper and the floor from the tea shop. This was one of my early room boxes, and I hadn't decorated it very well. And the wallpaper wouldn't have suited a florist shop anyway. I lined it with white lining paper and made a floor with a self-adhesive shelf lining.

I added wainscotting, using my old faithful 1:1 wallpaper. I still need to add moulding.

Meanwhile, I needed to do something with the furniture. This is the recurrent thing with room boxes (or any project that has an environment): you are eager to make whatever you are making - flowers in this case - but you have to prepare the environment first. Luckily, I like upcycling too.

I did a low table and two sideboards. The dresser in the centre moved from the tea shop - it isn't in scale, but I don't think it matters. I distressed it a bit. The fancy table on the left is made from a Chippendale kit. If you have a fancy piece in the foreground it catches the attention, and the rest is less noticed.

I am not sure about delft tiles - they were fine in the tea shop, but perhaps not in a flower shop. But that's easy to replace. Maybe with an old-fashioned flower pattern.

I also wanted a kind of multilevel display arrangement as they have in florist's, and I spent some time trying different options, including steps made from jenga blocks, but they looked too crude. So finally I built one from craft sticks.

 

When it was time to make more flowers it so happened - I swear, I hadn't planned it! - that a friend asked me to take her to a shopping centre, and while she was doing her shopping I ran over to my favourite hobby store. In my previous post I stated confidently that I wasn't buying a paper punch any time soon, but since I was there anyway... and they had a special offer... So it was meant to be.

I also bought two sets of tiny flowers in the wedding aisle. One just went in as it was. The other was a bundle of closed roses, and I first thought I would just put them in a jar, but then I thought that wasn't much of a challenge so instead I made some bouquets, adding flowers I made with the punch and with a set of scrapbooking daisies. (Scrapbooking and weddings have some amazing resources for miniature-making).

I punched various papers I had at home. 

The punched flowers were easy to attach to stems: I did exactly the same as with daffodils and irises: dabbing the tip of the wire in yellow paint, then adding a bead underneath the flower. I used three layers for each flower. They need leaves, but I don't really know what kind of flower they are and what kind of leaves this flower should have.

  


Then I had these prefabricated daisies some of which I left as they were and some painted in various colours.

 It wasn't until I started painting that I noticed they were also different shapes, which added to the variety.

Now, these were tricky to attach to stems because they already had a bead in the middle, too small to make a hole through. I prepared the stems with a bead glued on to one end.

 

I used strong glue and let it dry properly before gluing on the flower.

I made several pots: 

 

The ones on the left could be anemones. The ones on the right look very authentic, but I don't know what they are.  The leaves are made from a Christmas candlestick decoration that I had had for years, wondering when it might come handy. The pots are bottle caps.

The rest of the daisies, with longer stems, I added to the ready-made roses, arranging them in four OOAK bouquets wrapped in paper. I had to look up on the web how to wrap flowers. There are dozens of useful sites. The ferns are tiny sprigs of live conifer.

 

I have lots of materials left, and I took time to arrange them for the future. I know there are commercial organisers (I have some), but I am a recycler, and I have saved this chocolate box precisely for this occasion.

Lots of space for more.

I have got so far this weekend, and I won't have time to do more until next weekend, so here is the result up to date.

Some plants and flowers I had before, both ones I have made and some that came with various job lots. I plan to have a rail with hanging baskets and maybe some wall units, so do come back soon.

Window boxes

Now that I have roses on a trellis and ivy up the pillars, I also want window boxes. I would very much like to have iron-wrought boxes, but I haven't yet figured out how to make them. Preferably, I find some rubbish I can use.

While I am waiting for this particular rubbish to come my way, I have unearthed another piece of rubbish, or rather two. I have no idea what they are. Someone gave them to me a few years ago, and I have saved them to use as planters.

 

So first of all I put some air-drying clay into each. White tack would work too. Then I put a drop of glue into each planter and covered with coffee-grounds, for compost. It was just as messy as real planting.

 

Then I planted the flowers. I don't remember where these come from, most likely a job lot because I wouldn't have bought them for their own sake. I am not good at flowers, so maybe they are wrong for window boxes. Maybe they are climbers or whatever. But it's too late.

 

Now to the box itself. I considered various models (until I have wrought-iron ones), and I found some bits of angle moulding. Putting two bits together made a perfect window box. I glued on craft sticks on the sides, and for consoles I used bits of fancy coving.

 

I am not absolutely sure yet which windows will have these boxes. I only have two sets of planters, but then all boxes don't have to be exactly the same, do they? Tentatively, they are on the ground floor.

Ivy

I want some ivy on the front of my house. I have a bunch of plastic ivy for Christmas decoration that I have inherited and used occasionally.

Many years ago I tried to make a plant out of it by cutting leaves into smaller shapes. It wasn't very convincing, but I was less demanding then. What I have now noticed with my trained eye was that the leaves were assembled individually and very easy to take apart.

I cut off a branch and stripped it of all large leaves. Then I took all small leaves from other branches and stuck them onto my branch. There are tiny pegs, and each pair of leaves has a hole.

I now had four branches with small leaves. Commercial dollhouse ivy you can get from ebay has leaves 1cm broad. So I am not too far off the mark. I also had to twist the leaves to make them all face in the same direction (which I guess is the opposite of the original).

To make it look natural, I attached every second or third leaf to the surface with sticky dots. In real life it is of course the stem that sticks, but it was easier so. I used two branches on top of each other. They are of course deliberately asymmetrical.

I think the house exterior is getting more interesting with each step. I will now try to make some hanging plants to put on the upper balcony. Come back soon. 

PS I have conscientiously put all large leaves back on the remaining branches so that I can still use them for their initial purpose.

Trellis

I want a trellis for my climbing roses. I made it from coffee stirrers and two balsa strips. The balsa bits will be attached to the wall.

In the last picture, I aged the wood with light oak stain.

I have made roses from Fimo before, it's easy:

But I had a bunch of roses that came in some job lot, and I could just as well use them, only they had white stems. Why would anyone make roses with white stems? However, these roses had white stems which I had to paint - which felt a bit Alice in Wonderland.

By the way, I always use dry oasis when I paint small things.

I am pleased with the result:

Of course you can ask: where does this rose actually grow from. The answer is: I don't know. Yet.