Awhile back, one of our members did a fantastic job of teaching us all how to make trees for our layouts! I tried to find a video about it, and the one I’m attaching is the closest I found. (See below for Hints/Tips we learned at our club meeting in August 2025.)

A couple of differences/hints-tips we learned at our club meeting:

– BBQ skewers or disposable chopsticks work well for trees; you can cut to size with an art knife or razor saw. You can use a wire brush to give it the texture of tree trunks. Burnt siena makes a good red bark look; or any color you are going for is fine.

– Put some woodglue on the trunk to secure your “branches” – the scrubber pieces. You can also use potted plant liners – they come in other colors that can help!

– You can use spray on adhesive instead of dunking the tree in watered down glue. (Super 77 by 3M a good one.)

– Course turf from Woodland scenics works well, in dark green for the underside; use the spray on adhesive again, then lighter green for the top side to simulate light shining from above.

– Once done, you can add small twig pieces as dead branches if you want that for your look. Anything works, but a good idea is to use sage twigs (can be found in Eastern Oregon.)

– You can also spray it over with an aerosol hairspray to seal it all in when done.

See all the pictures in our Facebook Reel!