While wandering through the Walmart artificial flowers section, something I do regularly looking for things might look good on the layout, I ran across one called a "Pine Bough". I thought this might have the makings of cheap pine trees when all the branches were removed so I blew $3 to give it a try.
After removing each of the pine boughs, you have a pile that looks like this:
Take each one and use an Exacto knife to remove the bottom branches up to where you want it to look like a trunk. Use a scissors to shape the pine needles into a more pruned look if you want them for street trees, which my downtown beautification committee needed since they did a crummy job with the last trees they planted - they all died. If you want to plant them in a forest, just leave then as is. I use acrylic brown for the trunks, brush a little of the brown on the needles to make them look a little more realistic, and then spray them with some dullcote to take off the plastic shine. Mine weren't quite dry when I took the picture but it gives you an idea of the final product.
The committee is currently replanting the downtown streets so I'll post a picture of that tomorrow. You get about 40 trees from each bough so that's about 8 cents each, a pretty good deal I think. Anyway, another cheap way to landscape the layout.
After removing each of the pine boughs, you have a pile that looks like this:
Take each one and use an Exacto knife to remove the bottom branches up to where you want it to look like a trunk. Use a scissors to shape the pine needles into a more pruned look if you want them for street trees, which my downtown beautification committee needed since they did a crummy job with the last trees they planted - they all died. If you want to plant them in a forest, just leave then as is. I use acrylic brown for the trunks, brush a little of the brown on the needles to make them look a little more realistic, and then spray them with some dullcote to take off the plastic shine. Mine weren't quite dry when I took the picture but it gives you an idea of the final product.
The committee is currently replanting the downtown streets so I'll post a picture of that tomorrow. You get about 40 trees from each bough so that's about 8 cents each, a pretty good deal I think. Anyway, another cheap way to landscape the layout.
