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MLI Designs

This miniature landscaping is so much more involved than the interior. I'm so perplexed as to what I should do. 

But I will admit I do like the tree

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Sugarplum Dollhouse

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  • Taken with Apple iPad mini 2
  • Focal Length 3.3 mm
  • Exposure Time 1/24
  • f Aperture f/2.4
  • ISO Speed 200

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Love the tree! Love it!  I've been contemplating making one, but I fear Monte (my youngest sons' cat) would gnaw on it and tear it to shreds!

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@cloudbound ok, it's pretty easy. I followed the tutorial from this YouTube guy who makes interactive play scenes for those video war games.

Anyway, I bought a stem from Hobby Lobby that I thought would be decent for a tree. I took all the little leave stems off. I cut the base down. I drilled a hole in my wood for entree base to plug into.

I used the silicone from a glue gun to build the base of the tree and coat the branches. You move the glue gun up and down to create the crevices and texture on the trunk and branches. I left the bottom stem as is so I could pop it into the hole I drilled. Once the silicone was dried I painted it with chalk paint because that paint adheres to anything. Once that dried I used a couple of shades of brown to add more dimension. 

I you don't have to do this step but I didn't like the shine of the leaves. I used acrylic paint to paint the leaves in two shades of green. I also snipped some branches to shape the tree too. I also painted the stem branches brown that the leaves were attached to. 

Once it was dry I glue gunned the tree in place. It held great too. It's easy and looks pretty good.

Now I just wish I could find easy tutorials on flowers.

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  So the leaves were already ON the tree when you bought it at Hobby Lobby and you cut the branches (with leaves) off to paint the leaves the color you wanted.  Then reattached them?  I love that your tree is actually to scale.  I've only seen tiny ones at Hobby Lobby but I was looking in the 'model' area where they sell landscaping things for train sets. Although all of those teeny trees are nice - they're way too small.  Was your tree from the dollhouse department, the model train landscaping department, or over in the phony flowers area and there are 'greenery' for flower arrangements?

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@cloudbound yes, the leaves were already on. Check my gallery photos. I have one with them stem propped against my house. The leave branches have little plugs that push onto the basic stem. You just pop them off. I found my tree stem in the floral department but in the greenery section, not flowers.

@Debora59 wish I could take credit but I have to give it to the guy who did the YouTube tutorial. I really wanted a full tree (reminds me of my childhood) and I don't see that many full size miniature trees on dollhouse landscaping. Now I have to make a wind home and bird feeder. I have to go check out this guys YouTube channel. He has some very good and thrifty ideas that can be applied to miniature dollhouse. I'll post his link when I find it

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Oooh m'gosh.  I might have seen the same bird feeder and hummingbird feeder tutorial on youtube.  Lucky thing for me I save all sorts of odds and ends so I had the clear drinking straw and some Sculpey clay.  It was SO much fun.  Making the teeny weeny hummingbird was hard, even with my 'cheater' reading glasses to magnify it.  But they both came out really nice. 

  Now I want to sneak over to Hobby Lobby (30 minutes away in Reno, NV) and find one of those greenery stems to play with.  I already have a nice tree (made from dried out Sage Brush limb) but yours is going to be somewhat indestructible.  You know what is kind of neat about my Sage Brush tree - even after one whole year it still gives off the wonderful aroma of Sage flowers.  Not everyone would appreciate it but I love it.  There weren't any flowers ON it when I got it but somehow it smells like flowers now.  I was trying to imitate one of my favorite trees in this area - the Purple Robe Locust like the one in our yard.  It gets long recimes of purplish pink flowers in the spring.

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@cloudbound love your tree. In most of the tree tutorials I saw they said to use sage brush. I don't even know if we have that here. Sound silly?

show me your bird feeder. I might make one tomorrow. Maybe a wind home too.

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DSCF0089.JPG.3b6fb909308fc8b65c7592ce0a456fb0e00178c7_LAPTOP-5.25.15birdfeeders.How funny that tutorials would say to use Sage Brush.  It happens to grow all OVER the place around us so it was readily available.  Every day I eyeball one empty lot that's been taken over by it looking to see the perfect tiny 'tree' shapes.  Ha, ha. 

 

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Sorry my camera takes such bad photos.  The hummingbird feeder went with my first dollhouse when I sold it last year.  But I kept the bird feeder.  I just used a bit of sand for the bird 'seed' inside the straw and poked lengths of green florist wire through to look like the bird perches.

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How funny that tutorials would say to use Sage Brush.  It happens to grow all OVER the place around us so it was readily available.  Every day I eyeball one empty lot that's been taken over by the sage bushes, looking to see the perfect tiny 'tree' shapes.  Ha, ha. 

  What is a 'wind home'?

 

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Hey - I was wondering - I know you've already finished your wonderful tree but would you like me to send you a Sage Brush branch?  I was out in the vacant lot yesterday and picked a few nicely-formed branches.  Until I started cutting them I'd forgotten that they actually DID smell like fragrant sage flowers even though there are no flowers ON them right now.  So that's why my trees still smell so wonderful. 

  When I got mine I let them dry out pretty much and jostled them around to get the loose leaves to fall off.  THEN I sprayed it with a few coats of sealer and then used hair spray as glue to attach the green landscaping medium from Hobby Lobby.  So my trees still have some real leaves but are filled in with the phony stuff. 

  But one tree might be all you need.  And as I mentioned before, yours is probably going to be much sturdier in the long run.  If someone knocks mine, there's a good chance little stuff will get knocked off.

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