The Valley Landscaping - Painting, etc.

To start the painting of the valley I took some Woodland Scenics Earth Undercoat, mixed in some Plaid Apple Barrel Canary Yellow acrylic paint,and diluted with water.

However, this seemed a bit too yellow, so I diluted some Plaid Apple Barrel Burnt Umber with water and painted over it. This looks a bit better, as you can see in the second picture.

Next I decided it was time to glue in the mountains. One at a time, I used Woodland Scenics Scenic Glue on each piece of the mountains and weighed them down overnight until each dried.

Unfortunately, I didn't get the mountains as tight against the sides of the suitcase as I should have. As a result, I had to cut off some spots on the cliff faces where the train tended to catch as it went by. I also found that the two north pieces ended up too close together, so the trestle no longer fit between them. This required a bit more chipping away of the foam until the trestle once more fit between them.

Before going on to glue down the town and other landscape features of the valley I "planted" the corn and bean field behind the blacksmith shop.

After preparing two rows of corn from the Micro Art cornfield kit I cut six slits in the soil behind the blacksmith shop, cut the rows of corn to appropriate lengths, and inserted them into the slits.

I planted three trees beside the cornfield, then used tweezers to pull foliage fibers from a fourth tree. I glued the fibers to the ground with tiny dabs of Scenic Glue to create two rows of "bush beans" beside the corn.

I then threaded eight Bead Treasures orange glass seed beads (#ORSB-450) that I found at Hobby Lobby onto some of Janet's dark green sewing thread. I held them in place, separated one to two