Friday 28 August 2015

Sylvanian Garden DIY Tutorial

If, like me, you wanted your toys to have some really cool accessories, nothing ranked higher than a realistic garden diorama to play with! So, now with the tools and the practice, I am able to make those dreams a reality. A few years too late for me, but hopefully you or your children will love it!


First, we start with our materials; foam board (A3 size originally), loose coffee grounds, a LOT of tea leaves (I have used green tea leaves from a very cheap supermarket brand, they give a lovely green grass affect), some PVA, wooden sticks or chopsticks, and either a professional terrain makers set of wood chips or another fine material such as sand or grit.


First, I cut my board to size, and arranged a few pieces on it to get the general shape and design of the garden. I really wanted to make a miniature vegetable garden, as well as space for another accessory such as the Beekeeper set from Sylvanian families (see post below!) or the garden table and chairs.


Using the offcuts of foam board, I made a template of the size of my "vegetable patch" and cut it out of the board. This is so the garden is raised above the level of the rest of the garden, similar to a raised bed we have in our own garden.


After cutting, the foam board doesn't fit perfectly but I wanted a rustic-style garden so that's okay. If you would like to use other materials, such as painted cardboard, a pair of wooden chopsticks or lolly-pop sticks, that would also work really nicely.


I covered the board in a LOT of glue.


Then dusted over a THICK layer of coffee grounds. I made the mistake of not putting a piece of paper under the board first, which would be able to catch the run off after. I love how it looked like soil.


I then covered the area I had allocated as "grass" with a THICK layer of PVA glue.


Again, make sure to put a piece of paper underneath the foam board before you do this, because then you can tip the run off tea leaves back onto the board to cover up any holes.


The tea leaves work really well, I think!


After tipping off the excess.


I have used "Battlefield" brand "battlefield rocks" which are really small brown chips of a cardboard-like material. These are expensive, but give a really, really lovely effect. If you are working to a very strict budget, think about using sand, grit from your garden, or fine grain sawdust, but do remember these will give a different look.


I repeated the steps with the gravel, adding a really thick layer of glue first because of the large size of the particles.


After tipping off the excess.....


Splodge a large amount of glue straight onto the grass (or, if you are smarter than I am, plan ahead and leave a small space for the garden to be glue onto the board) and press the coffee-covered board down so it sticks.


It's okay if the glue pours out the sides a little, because this can be used to stick the wooden frame to the coffee board.


Nearly finished...


I used some more professional terrain material (Battlefields brand foliage), tearing small pieces off and gluing them onto the coffee board in rows.


Looking pretty good!!!!


The finished article (close up)


A few glamour shots with some helpful modelling!






I would have committed murder to have this toy as a child. It makes the toys seem so much more alive, and feels much more real than the plasticky gardens you get elsewhere. However it is a very messy job, and bits of tea leaves and flocking will fall off as they are played with, so if you are houseproud make sure they play with this outside or on an easily-hooverable area!

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