Tire swing, swinging on a tree

This my newest miniature.

A tree with a tire swing.

It was a long time in the making but I'm happy with the finished piece.

I had tried to make a tree earlier in the summer but, well, it didn't turn out too good.

We shall call it the fail tree.

This is the fail tree.

I used chicken wire and modrock which was fun at the time (minus the chicken wire scratches on my hands) but far too bulky to look like a real tree.

Then I gave up for a while until I saw this piece by Lori Nix.

A tree!
And she explained how she made it.

So I was all set to go again with a new method.

I twisted some wire into a tree shape.

Then I covered the wire in Fimo/polymer clay. I used whatever colours I had since it was going to be painted over anyway, hence the random pink.

To get a tree bark texture I screwed up some aluminium foil, flattened it out again and pressed it against the Fimo.

Once it had been cooked in the oven (only falling over in there once) I painted it.

Then I had to put on the leaves.

The stuff you can buy in hobby shops for model railways is far too expensive for something I wasn't even sure would work, so I improvised.

I bought a cheap sponge and tore it into tiny pieces that I painted green.

Then I stuck them to the tree with PVA glue. One by one. With a pair of tweezers.

The tire was also made with Fimo (can't get enough of it after the success of the copper kettles) and I got the tread pattern by imprinting it with the tire of a Playmobile car.

And that's how I made my tree!