At least it's sunny indoors!

It's cold and rainy outside but working on this little scene of "Dorothy's Corner" makes me feel like I'm sitting outdoors in the middle of the summer in a private, sunny little corner. My favourite thing!

While the piece itself is still under construction, I keep the picture of what I want firmly planted in my head. Now, the challenge will be to get it to look like I see it in my mind!

When we left off in my last post, I had finished laying the rocks on the shed walls and shingling the little roof piece.

I then marked out an area that would be a garden bed and went outdoors to find some twigs to use to build a split rail fence. I found lots of deadfall that included twigs already grayed and covered with lichen - perfect for my purpose.

I really like how the fence ended up - just like the one in my mind!

Now, my plan is to have a good-sized hydrangea tree with flower-filled branches hanging over from behind the fence. In my stash I found a package of two bare branch trees with red glitter on the branches. I had purchased these at Dollarama at Christmas time. They had a selection of colours - red glitter, silver, gold or green if I remember correctly. I then painted two coats of burnt umber craft paint over all the red glitter and spread the branches out. On the left is what it looked like originally, and after one coat of paint on the right.

Now it's time to lay my grass. Yes - what you are seeing is a very cheap taupe-coloured face cloth. I then cut it to fit the outline I had drawn and spread watered-down Tacky glue to the base before stretching the fabric and smoothing it down. I used full strength Tacky to then attach the cloth down the sides of the base before trimming the small bit of excess off.

I left it for about a half hour to make sure it was dry then I gathered my paints. I used three colours: woodland night green, leprechaun, and antique gold.

Starting with the darkest green and making sure to wipe a lot of the paint off before I began, I started pouncing the colours onto the facecloth fabric. It is important to use a pouncing method, not a paint stroke method. It's also important that your terry cloth fabric is a beige or brown colour to start with so it looks like soil underneath. After the dark green I used the light green followed by the gold which is used more sparingly. If you want to try this method yourself I would suggest you try it on a sample piece first to make sure you have the method down pat before you start. I actually like the way this looks for a short-cropped lawn.

Now to lay out the base of the garden bed. I just used chunks of floral foam, trimmed and contoured to fit the space. The flat piece you see cut out by the rock wall is where I plan on putting a bird bath a little later on.

I then painted the floral foam brown in case any of it could be seen through the "soil" I would add later.

I also added some grass behind the fence although some parts back there will be soil.

Next steps will be to add soil and begin planting!

Don't forget - "Dorothy's Corner" brings with it a contest that will end on May 14th. For each of the postings about this project, if you enter a comment your name will be placed in a random draw for a prize which will be revealed soon. Also, one other prize will be given to the first person who can correctly guess why it is called "Dorothy's Corner". There will actually be a couple of hints in the piece itself which will show up as the project progresses. Good luck to all!

While you are waiting for my next post, you might want to check out Kris Compass's blog at 1-Inch Minis by Kris as this month's entry is about building an attic room box from scratch using foamboard. She is then going to start blog entries on items to fill the attic. I think this would be a great little project to do as a club project or to introduce to new people to our wonderful hobby.

Whatever mini you're working on now - have fun!! TTFN!! - Marilyn