Good morning everyone!
How are we all on this fine Saturday morning? How has your week been?
This week we have something a little different! I'm Jess, and I'm taking over this week's newsletter to give Justin a well-deserved break!
I've been at Scale Model Scenery a little over a month now (my role is Design and Marketing Manager). I've been busy behind the scenes with some projects which you'll see in your orders from us, and will surely see more of soon! A little bit about me: I'm passionate about the environment, love to garden and be outdoors, therefore it's no shock that my favourite layout/diorama scenes involve plants or trees in some shape or form. That's why this week I've decided to choose ‘all things green’ as my theme.
This week's team update
This week I'm shining the spotlight on the rest of the team so you know a little more about what we get up to:
🏛️ Stu's been working on an N Gauge Box Girder Bridge and Catch Pits in TT:120 scale
🪵 Scott's been busy churning out products on our laser machines and keeping our inventory stocked
📮 Carl and Kate have been busy running around and boxing up all your orders
👩🏻💻 I've been busy catching up with our social media schedule, creating adverts and planning some future campaigns
New releases
LX141-120 Catch Pits - Bar Type are now available
Railway Modellers Club featured image
This weekend's featured image comes from Kevin over on the Railway Modellers Club. We love the track level perspective on this one, very realistic 👏🏻
Member tip of the week
This week we have Hans Van De Burgt's top tip - collecting and using real foliage as a base for creating trees. The result looks fantastic!
Hydrangea Anomala Petiolaris:
From left to right, Sedum ‘Carl’, Spirea Japonica and Nandida Domestica:
Aren't they incredibly effective? Hopefully you'll find them as inspiring as I have, I just want to rummage in the garden and get stuck in making some of my own!
It's video time! This week we have a theme: all things green!
Here's a selection of videos that might inspire you to have a go at making trees or foliage with items you may already have lying about.
How to turn teabags into model tree leaves
For the first video from LNR Models, I was really inspired knowing that you can recycle and repurpose tea leaves to create realistic looking trees. Whether you're a seasoned crafter or a complete beginner, you'll find this project both fun and rewarding, and if you're a serious tea-drinker like me then it's a brilliant way to re-use a pile of used teabags!
Individual flowers, static grass tufts, meadow grass and wax crayon flowers
Next we have a video from Dartside Scenics - Dioramas and Models, which showcases a few different techniques to create fabulous foliage. How clever is freezing wax crayons and using the shavings as powder for flowers? Using highly pigmented crayons opens up your options for creating lots of colourful plants and can brighten up your layout.
DIY easy, realistic looking ivy/vines
The next video from Real Terrain Hobbies shows the step by step process to make a realistic looking vine from twine, which is a lovely inexpensive technique to try and great idea. The result also means the twine vine is much more flexible than using wire and can wrap around models very easily, much more like the real thing!
How to make ferns for dioramas
This video from Baron Von Clay shows how to make incredible looking ferns by adding gypsum to an acrylic paint and PVA glue mix… I can't believe how effective the end result is! Plus, using acrylic paint means you could make them in pretty much any colour, which is perfect for all seasons.
Building a zen garden diorama
And last but not least, this video by Jordi Elias was a really relaxing watch - there is no voiceover on this one, just simply focusing on the build and creativity itself. The end result is idyllic and shows some really nice details, I feel like I'm actually there when I watch the final scene footage.
If any of the above videos have inspired you to have a go at making greenery, you can always have a look at our range of scenery here on our site.
As always, we love to hear from you so please do contact us and keep showing off your projects, posting tips or tricks on Railway Modellers Club and inspiring others.
Have a lovely relaxing weekend, whatever you get up to I hope it's a good one!
From Jess & the team 🙋🏻♀️
I really enjoyed the videos for this week - thanks Jess - lots of food for thought and trial. I'm not really one for lots of videos of large layouts (especially Lego), I'm interested in those showing how to do stuff and make it look effective.
So, well done Jess, I hope to read/view more of your efforts in the future.
We have a smoke bush, Cotinus, in the garden and the flower heads look as though they'll be good for trees. They come in a range of sizes, which can be trimmed to scale. (N in my case). I'll probably add some leaves in the form of dried tea leaves, green or red. I've never done it before but I'm inspired by the newsletter. I'll add a photo on the Facebook group page.