Blue In Green

Now we're getting somewhere! Don't you just love the point in a mini project where you start to see your (sometimes very long awaited) vision come to life?!? It makes me want to ignore all my other responsibilities and just mini all the time!

How much sleep does a person really need, anyway?

Getting here wasn't all that much work - just the better part of five days. And when I'm making mini flowers and landscaping, the joy makes it feel like no time at all!

Let's start with my inspiration photo...

This combination of blue and green flora uplifted my soul!

In my attempt to capture some of what this image evokes in me, I started with one of my favorite blue flowers - hydrangea. I wanted to make a shrub, but with limited laser cut petal and leaf sheets (purchased from SDK Miniatures), I knew it would have to be a compact one. I had 5+ petal sheets and 4+ leaf sheets on hand which made fifteen flower heads.

*** If you buy the kit, it comes with beads to create the hydrangea heads (seven, I think). You can make your own up with just a few craft supplies below. If you are using Punch Bunch mini punches, the scale ends up being a bit larger than the SDK laser cut sheets but they are still passable. Regular printer paper works, or tissue paper for the petals. If you have Japanese Rice or Silk paper, it is even better. Just make sure you cut the leaves with the veins running vertically.

#28 floral wire, beads, leaf and petal punch for making your own without the kit.

I only purchased the individual leaf and petal sheets, so I had to make up my own bead heads. I cut wires to around 2", filled the bead hole with tacky glue, stuck in the wire and then let them dry. Later, I painted the beads in a similar color to my petals. I made extras so that next time I feel the urge to make hydrangeas, I can grab them and go! I used alcohol inks in cloudy blue for the petals and meadow for the leaves.

I like when mini hydrangea leaves have the veins - marvelous texture! So, like an obsessed person, I veined each leaf with a miniature leaf veining die that I purchased so many years ago. I had trouble finding a similar one to link for you, but I am sure they are out there if you can just find the right string of words to search under. 

Once all fifteen of my flower heads were ready...

I needed to make a shrub frame. I used aluminum wire to create an armature. I use the method taught by Luke Towan, just adapting up from railroad model scale to 1/12th scale. I think his wire length was 13 inches for an HO scale tree, and my 4" bush started out with 8 - 20 inch strands. If I had had more flower heads, I could have used more strands so that it would have ended up with more branches.

My finished size needed to fit a 2" x 2" x 4" space.

After trimming a bit

Imagine my shock when, after only nine years sitting in a drawer (since the last time I used it), my latex rubber had completely solidified! I was surely not going to wait over a week to get more shipped to me, so the next best thing was wood glue to coat, texture and thicken up the wires.

After several coats.. You can also wrap the armature in paper clay if you like. It is great for adding wonderful bark texture if you have the time. I needed to get my bush ready quickly, so I left any further detailing opportunity on the table.

I sought inspiration on the web, once again, for the actual bark of a hydrangea shrub...

I'm happy enough with my impressionist version... Most of it will be hidden, anyway.

Now the fun part! Attaching the flower heads...

And filling in the space with every last leaf I had! Trust me, there were LOADS! Still, my hydrangea shrub looks... ahem... like it belongs to someone who is not afraid to prune! But I LOVE IT!!! It turned out perfect for the space and it looks lovely! I hot glued it to the landscape board so that I could raise it up a bit. Once I get it tucked under a nice bed of "dirt", it'll be even better!

Next up was to come up with ground cover for either side of the garden path. I got inspo from this photo, and I thought I could replicate it with the things I had in my landscape stash. First, a Bill Lankford climbing vine. It is a sheet of a tangled web of maybe coconut husk fibers? With model railroad clump foliage sprinkled on top? If you scroll down, once you hit the link's landing page, you will see other variations offered. Mine was plain greenery.

At any rate, I cut it up, glued it down, then punched out a bunch of tiny five petal flower shapes from tissue paper, shaped them, glued them and added a yellow dot to each center. Blue Flax? Creeping Thyme? Forget Me Not? You decide! It makes for a quick and charming groundcover.

I only used the tiniest petals

You may have also noticed that I did a bit of terraforming with hot glue around both end corners. I had some of the spongy dollhouse groundcover stuff in a mix of blue, white and green bits. I just slathered the "ground" in tacky glue, sprinkled on the squishy bits, pressed it in a bit, then let dry. Once dry I removed any loose crumbs and saved them for later use. Another simple and pleasing groundcover.

And here is where it stands as of this writing. I am loving the blue in green palette! BTW, Miles Davis has been the perfect accompaniment!

Next session, I get to begin Delphinium and, with a bit of license taken, Geranium. The joy is almost too much to contain!

My advice? Go get your hands dirty! Soil? Glue? Dough? Makes no difference! Whatever ignites your joy, my friends! Do it now before you lose the inspiration!

xo xo,

Jodi