You Don't Need A Green Thumb To Design A Beautiful Landscape...

...You only need guidance, expert advice, and a patient teacher. And you'll find all of these in "Landscaping Primer with Diane Myrick," Volume 11 of the multi-part Master Miniaturists Video Instructional Series from Mindstorm Productions. The series features expert instruction by some of the country's top miniature artisans, covering a variety of specialties.

In Volume 11, Diane Myrick draws on her 20 years of experience as a miniaturist to provide you with step-by-step instructions for creating all the elements of a beautiful landscape. Both novice and expert miniaturists will benefit from Diane's instructions as she teaches how to make miniature bushes, flowers, trees, and even a pond. "Equipped with the techniques demonstrated on this video," Diane says, "you can landscape any project in any scale."

After an in depth introduction of the tools and materials you'll need, Diane shows you how to create a pond which will become the centerpiece of your landscape. You'll watch as she uses a metal melon ball scoop to carve out the pond from the rigid foam. And she offers a great tip to make it look more realistic. "You'll want to paint it a dark color," she says. "The darker the color, the deeper it will look." Throughout her demonstrations, Diane reminds you that the most important thing to remember is t hat "Landscaping is fun!"

Once your pond is dry, you'll lay the grass around it by first applying a thin coat of glue to the rigid foam base. After demonstrating a technique that makes the glue easier to work with, Diane shows you a way to apply the "grass" that will cover the entire base in less than a minute. And since a landscape isn't very realistic without soil, she shares a few secrets for creating soil from a variety of materials, including coffee grounds run through the blender.

After the grass has dried, you'll learn to create hedges, vines, and bushes to lay around the perimeter of the base. These all begin with a covering material similar to steel wool. "The trick to using covering material," says Diane, "is the less you use, the better it will look."

Most important of all, when creating your landscapes, remember to use nature as your guide. And because nature offers us a variety to shades and colors, Diane shows you how easy it is to add color to your landscape by adding simple flowers. "You can mi x them; you can match them; you can do them all one color if you like," she says. "It's really up to your individuality."

The final step in the project will be to add a tree to your garden. This is by far the most difficult and time consuming part of the process. But following Diane's instructions you'll have a lot of fun completing what at first seems like a difficult task. "The tree will probably take you longer than anything else to finish." she says. "But you'll enjoy it!" And if you make a mistake, she advises, "Relax, it's not a big deal."

Once the individual pieces are completed, you'll marvel as they're assembled into a finished, well-groomed landscape. And you'll understand why Diane says, "With a little imagination, you can create any type of scene you want."