Made some running "water"

Before I did anything today, I added more stones to the retaining walls on the sides of the ryokan, and added more moss. Adding those is tedious, but if I keep doing a little every day, pretty soon it will be finished.

I added a couple of the "streams of water" I made last night with the Liquid Nails Clear Sealant to the water basin, and it looks quite good in person. I don't know whether or not I will need to do anything more to it or not. It will all depend on how it looks when the sealant I used to glue it to the "pipes" and the "water" dries.

What I did here was dumb, but most of you probably know how it is when a family member comes in from out of the blue, and decides to cause a lot of trouble. Anyway, that is what has been happening in my life for a few months now, and things are getting worse, so tonight I wasn't thinking right when I worked on the pond.

I adhered the waterfall to the little stream above, then started to pour the Realistic Water into the pond. Right after I started pouring, I remembered that I should have trimmed the waterfall to look natural. Anyway, the waterfall is propped up in the air on a tacky wax container which is sitting on the deck. I'll have to let that layer of water dry before I can measure and trim the waterfall. The Liquid Nails Sealant that I made the waterfall out of must be really sticky, because I couldn't get the waterfall off of the wax paper. It looks okay, and if it needs it, I'll just add a little more sealant to cover up any wax paper that might show when it's finished.

The pond is milky because I just poured the "water". It has still been drying crystal clear. (Fingers crossed)!

I've also been adding more to the path behind the pond. It looks much fuller in person than it does in the photo for some reason.

Adding foliage to the pergola, water to the pond, and more flowers

Last night and tonight, I alternated working on two things, the flowers and the pergola. Alternating gave them a little bit more drying time than if I had only stuck to one thing.

The pergola is coming along, although it still needs more fussing with. I used some purple and green foliage stuff from Woodland Scenics, that I've had for years. It's the kind of stuff that you pull apart to make it really thin and wispy. I put that over the top, and added some light green coarse turf, and medium green fine turf. It doesn't look too bad so far, and when I finish it, maybe it will be acceptable.

The last thing I did tonight was to give the pond another coat of Realistic Water. You can see in this photo, how it's coming up around the bases of the cat tails and the irises. The fish are beginning to be covered too, although it will need at least two more coats, and probably more. I'm not doing the full 1/8th" layers, because I think it would take longer than 24 hours to dry. It's a tiny bit milky when it's wet, but so far, it has been drying perfectly clear.

These are some of the flowers I was working on. Most of them were made using a little flower punch that looks like a regular silver hole punch, and the snowflake punch was used for the leaves. I added a bunch of the flowers I made to the path behind the pond, but I'm not finished with the little patch where they are yet, so I didn't upload the photo. I'll take another photo of it when it really starts to look like something.

I did try to get some DAP caulking stuff that I read about in some waterfall tutorials. They all said it was readily available everywhere, but apparently all those people who write the tutorials don't live in eastern Maine. I sure wish they hadn't enlarged our Walmart to be three times as big as it used to be, because when they enlarged it, they stopped carrying so many things they used to carry, like all that hardware store stuff. They used to sell DAP at Walmart when it was a small store, as well as silicone glue, lots of crafts, cloth for quilting, paint and varnish, a good selection of office supplies, and a lot of other stuff they say they don't have room for now. Whoever is the CEO at Walmart, needs to be fired in my opinion!

Anyway, I found some other stuff that is supposed to be flexible, and dry clearer than silicone, so I'll try that on wax paper tomorrow and see how it looks. This is the first time I have really done a lot of landscaping, and I'm enjoying it!

I finished making more irises for the pond, and am getting ready to add "water"

We were gone for most of the day today, but last night, and tonight when we got home, I worked on quite a few more purple irises, and also made a bunch of yellow ones. I think the pool looks much better now.

I'm going to let the glue dry for a couple of hours, then I may pour a shallow layer of Realistic Water before I go to bed tonight. I was very happy with the way it worked in the stream under the bridge, and I can't wait to see it in the pond!

You are supposed to pour it no more than 1/8th inch deep, then let it dry for 24 hours, before pouring another 1/8th inch, so it will be a few days before it is finished, but I don't mind, it will be fun to watch it go from a blue and green hole, to a pond!

I'm not sure about calling this an onsen. I don't think a hot mineral spring would have koi and plants in it, but they add so much more to the pond than if it was just empty, so I added them. I may also do some water lilies after the water is finished.

More wisteria and finished the rocks around the onsen

Last night I got a lot more wisteria on the pergola, (and also on the ground!!!). I hope I get the wisteria part finished tonight. I made a lot of vines hanging down, because in most of the photos of pergolas with wisteria I have seen, there is a lot of it, but it sure is a pain to put it on, and I have to keep waiting for some to dry before I add more. I'm excited to add greenery to it.

Last night and today, I finally finished the rocks around the onsen. I'm going to make more irises for it tonight, because that clump isn't really big enough. By tomorrow night, I should be able to pour the first layer of water. I don't want to pour it until the silicone I used to glue the rocks on has set for 24 hours.

I added another thin layer of Realistic Water to the little stream. It's kind of milky right now, but it was last night too. Once last night's layer dried, it was clear and shiny though, so I expect this layer will be clear as well, once it has dried. This layer may be all that is needed, because the bridge will pretty much cover it up. I was really happy when I looked at how clear the water was this morning!

Wisteria on the pergola, and rocks around the onsen

Last night, I got flowersoft "wisteria blossoms" on more than half of the hanging vines. Hopefully I will get the rest of them done tonight, then I will be able to add some greenery to them!

I also added a lot of little stones to the outdoor onsen. All those fish look like they are dead from this angle though!!! :-0 I'm not going to add "water" until I finish adding rocks, because it would look funny if I end up putting the rocks on top of the water, rather than starting underneath. I also might make some yellow irises as well as the purple ones. I'm liking the rocks around it better than just Celluclay. You can see the difference on the right hand side, where I don't have all the rocks yet.

The bridge is missing from this photo because I did put realistic water in the stream above, but it's so shallow that you can't see it in a photograph. I'm going to wait for the "water" to dry before I put the bridge back.

I brought the rest of the ryokan home. A few things got broken, but nothing that can't be fixed.

Building a pergola and more

The first thing I did today was to add some store bought cat-o-nine tails to the pond. I wanted to make the ones I made look fuller. These were smaller, and I'm not sure they really added much to the pond, but they are okay I guess.

Next, I painted the edges of the "slate" level next to the ryokan grey, and added some hedges I bought on Saturday to edge that level. I'm not crazy about them. They look too small and formal, so I am going to add foliage materials to them to make them taller and look more natural. You can just see the edge of them in this photo. I really was having a hard time figuring out what to do with that level.

This is the start of a pergola. It will have two more posts in the middle, and will have wisteria growing over it.

This is an overview of what the ryokan looks like now. Sorry the photo is so bad, but I am back to my old phone again, and I didn't realize just how bad that camera was compared to the newer ones! (I had a Note 7, but had to send that back. T-Mobile sent a Galaxy S7 Edge as a loaner, but I really didn't like the phone, so when I found out the Note 7 was discontinued, I sent the S7 Edge back and decided to choose a different phone, rather than keep one I wasn't happy with).

Anyway, this photo shows where the pergola will be, as well as that ugly hedge I added to the front. I guess the hedge will make a good base for whatever I decide to add to it.

I also stuck two bushes I had laying around on either side of the steps. The left one has yellow "blossoms" and the right one has red, although they don't really show up in this photo. Those aren't stuck down, they are basically only there to get an idea of what to put between the hedge and the steps. I think a couple of rhododendrons would look good there! I added stones under the hand washing basin as well, because the Japanese usually put stones under them so the water won't splash mud all over.

I also did more on the stone retaining walls and pond. I wish I had made the pond a little bit further from the edges of the base, because there isn't quite room enough to add the stones in certain places.

At any rate, I am quite happy with the landscaping so far, and it will be easy to change things like the hedge, that I don't like, into something that looks better. It's not perfectly to scale with the house, but that wouldn't have been possible without making a huge base for it.

Stone bench and more

This photo is of the ryokan before I started working on it this morning. It's starting to look so much better the more I do on the landscaping!

This morning I worked on the retaining walls some more, and started adding little stones to the onsen. I think they will look nice around it.

I also built a little stone bench by cutting a small piece of basswood into a curved shape, using an X-Acto knife and some little files. I covered this with granite (either Fimo or Sculpey, I can't remember which), clay. The legs are little elongated balls I made with the same clay. The legs were attached using silicone glue. I'll attach some "moss" tomorrow, when the glue has dried.

I was going to use the stone lantern near the bench, but as you can see from the photo, the lantern looks huge compared to those trees, so I'll use it somewhere else.

There is an eBay seller who makes beautiful resin "stone" lanterns, but the smallest size he has listed right now are the 4" ones. I contacted him to see if he was going to make any more 2" ones. Those would be more in scale with this house. He has some lanterns which aren't the tall ones, and I think one of those would look better because the trees are so small.

It's really difficult landscaping this house, because it is very tall, and there isn't much room around it for the landscaping, so most of what is outside, isn't really 1/20th scale. So far, everyone who see it thinks it looks fine, even though it isn't really true to scale.

This photo shows the bench better, and under the trees, you can sort of see some ferns I made using a McGill fern punch. I'm not sure how they look under there yet, there isn't enough room to really see the side of the house, and it's difficult to arrange anything on either side at the back. I love the size of this house, but it really is huge!

Made some irises for the onsen

I figured out a pretty easy way to make miniature irises today. I had been wanting to make some for a while, but didn't really know what to use to make them. Today, as I was going through my punches, I came across the one in the photo below. It has eight petals, and I really only needed six, but I thought I would try it anyway.

To make the iris:

1: Punch out a flower in your desired color of scrapbook paper.

2: Thread a piece of florists wire through the center.

3: If your flower has six petals, fold three petals up, and three down, alternating each petal. If your flower has eight petals, as mine does, fold the petals with the red "u's" up, the ones with the yellow "d's" down, and cut off the two petals with the green "c's" close to the center using a pair of manicure scissors. If your irises are as tiny as mine are, you won't even notice where you cut the petals out.

4: Dip a piece of the florists wire into some yellow craft paint, and put some on the center of the flower, and use the wire to make a tiny yellow line partway down each of the "down" petals. (I used the florists wire rather than a toothpick, because it was so tiny.)

5: Add some slivers of green scrapbook paper to the irises, leaving some bare wire at the bottom for inserting it into your base.

I added some more leaves after I put the irises in the pond. That way I would be able to see where more leaves were needed.

This is the punch I used.

Here are the irises in the pond.

Yesterday I got to JoAnn's, and bought more little stones, so today I worked some more on the retaining walls for a while, and also played around with making more flowers. I'll show those tomorrow. I found a neat way to make leaves!

More cat-o-nine tails and more flowers

I finished the cat-o-nine tails today, and they look pretty good in the onsen.

To make them, cut some 32 gauge wrapped florists wire to the length you want it.

2. Put a bit of Aleene's Clear Gel Tacky Glue on one end of the wire, and dip it into some model railroad sand.

3. Use your fingers to mold it to a cat tail shape.

4. Cut slivers of green scrapbbook paper to the length and width you want them and glue them to the bottoms of the stems, leaving a bit of stem below the leaves for inserting into your base.

I may add a few more leaves to mine to make them fuller.

Here they are in the onsen. I will position them a little better when they are completely dry. I may add a few more leaves if they look like they need it.

This is an overview of what the ryokan looked like after I made the cat tails and added some flat stones to the steps up to the ryokan. I forgot to take a closeup of the rock steps. They were stones I found on the beach behind the shop. I still haven't decided how I am going to finish the wall behind the steps yet.

Just before we closed up, I was playing around with foliage branches, just to get ideas for filling things in behind the onsen, and on the side of the flagstone path. I need to buy more stones before I can finish the rock retaining walls. I tried some rocks from the beach, but we have mostly granite on the island, and the stones on the beach don't really work well for the walls.

I also made some daisies, and added them to the left of the bridge.

This is another view of playing around with foliage branches. Even thought the rock wall isn't finished, at least I can get an idea of whether or not I want to use them here.

Working on outdoor steps and paths

I was trying to figure out how to make steps to go up to the entrance to the ryokan. I decided to make some "granite" to contain crushed stone. The wooden framework doesn't look much like granite, and the steps are still too high, so I am going to try making some air dry clay stones to go against the foam, and see how that looks. I'll camouglage the foam when I've decided what more the steps need.

This shows the steps from a distance. I forgot I was going to use stepping stones for paths, and made a crushed stone path up as far as the little bridge.

I added a few of my Celluclay stepping stones on the other side of the bridge. I think they'll work okay. They look quite nice in person. I'll work on garden features as I add the stepping stones. The pool still isn't dry, so I couldn't do anything more to that yet. Eventually, it will have moss, irises, and things like that around it. I'm also thinking about making a little wooden platform with two levels on the right hand side of the pool. The higher level will be even with the top of the pool walls and the level above it, and the lower level will be just above the surface of the pool. That will make it easier for the guests to get into the onsen.

More work on the oudoor onsen, pot hanger, stepping stones and more on the retaining walls

I did some more work on the retaining walls. I like the way the fake moss is filling it all in. In person, you can't see any of the styrofoam behind the rocks, but the camera really magnifies everything. I really need more bags of little rocks though, I'm getting down to only having the smallest ones left.

There are a lot of pot hangers in the photos in the books that came with the kits, so I decided to make one for my house. I am waiting until tomorrow to hang things from it, because I want the glue to have plenty of time to dry.

These are supposed to be stepping stones. I made them with Celluclay. I hope they look more like stepping stones when they are painted and laid on the ground, because they don't look too great right now. My plan is to paint them, and lay them down along stone covered paths.

So far, the onsen looks kind of goofy. I painted it the way it said to on the woodland scenics site. The Celluclay is still pretty wet, so I didn't seal it yet. It's getting so cold here, nothing seems to dry. I did try my heat gun on it, but that didn't help much. Anyway, maybe it will look better when I can seal it and add water!

Outdoor onsen, handwashing basin and more retaining wall work

I did more work on the handwashing basin today. There is a bamboo water pipe made from skewers that will eventually have a small stream of "water" coming out and going down into the top basin. The bigger pipe at the bottom was also supposed to be bamboo, but I never got any convincing bamboo made, so I'm just leaving it as a brass rod. This will also have "water" coming out and going into the basin below. (There is a layer of my glossy cardmaking stuff in there. I need to let each shallow level of water dry before adding more).

This shows my celluclay outdoor onsen, (hot spring). I made a little stream above, and put the bridge over it. The stream will come out of a little stone place in the terrace behind the bridge. I'm thinking that the onsen is still too round, and not natural looking enough, so I may extend it further up the side on the right after I do a little more landscaping. Ignore those little flower beds that are on there now.They were some I made years ago, and I just put them on there because I wanted flowers. They really aren't Japanese style though, so they will soon be gone.

The bottom of the pool will be deeper blue in the center, shading out to lighter blues and greens toward the edges. The stream will have the lighter shades of blues and greens because it will be shallower. The outside walls will be painted to look like rocks. Once I manage to get some "water effects", I will add a little waterfall.

I decided to try more of my little stone fish in the onsen. They were pressed down into the celluclay while it is still wet. I will take them out when I paint the bottom, then try them in it when it's painted. I hope I will like them, but I'm not really sure.

I added more rocks to the retaining wall, and am trying to fill in the cracks with foliage.