Japanese Dolls' House (Ryokan in Stile Giapponese): Additional Stuff : Water Lily

May 15th - May 22nd 2015

I purchased recently from The Miniature Garden Centre a few kits that I wanted to use for the Japanese Inn and my next project. The kits are super easy and quite nice. I wanted to add a small tub with water lilies in it out in the back so I had been searching for the right kind of container for a while. I ended up finding it while cleaning out some old perfume bottles and such. It’s some kind of stone carved pot which contained a solid perfume. The top and bottom never really fit well and sure enough, looking at the top, I thought it would make a nice container. So I took it apart, cleaned it up and made the transformation.

Before cooking the liquid Fimo

After cooking the Fimo

I added some stones in the bottom and then made my “water” by using liquid Fimo. I added some moss and grass round the edges (this is going out in the back where no one really stays on top of the gardening or caring for the lilies) where I figured the garden would be trying to reclaim the tub. I then got cracking on the lilies.

The kit pieces

The pieces are pre-cut and quite small. But with a little patience and perseverance I managed the three flowers. Next were the leaves. I did some net surfing to find some interesting leaves and sure enough there were a ton of photos. I was undecided whether I should make them a bit yellow or not, considering the neglect. But I really liked the overall look of the healthy leaves so I decided to leave them green with a little brown on the edges. I used the bottom of a paint brush to round the edges of the leaves up a bit. I then put a little clear gloss on them and positioned everything in the tub leaving the last largest leaf a bit above the surface of the water. I added more gloss varnish again over the bottom leaves and the surface of the water and let that dry. Then, I just added the little flowers on top.