I picked up these aquarium plants at the local Petco years ago, it's a Petco brand product, but I don't know if they still carry them or not. There are many other companies that produce and sell aquarium plants though so just look around and see if you can find something similar. After opening the package, you will see that the green bases hold two plants pieces each and those plants can be removed from the base easily enough.
I grabbed some left over scrap wood I had from a previous project. It was slightly thick and sturdy, those were the important factors here. I then traced out a hex pattern using a glyph.
I started out trying to use a hobby knife, but the blade broke on me as it was too thin and weak for this job. I then turned to a set of wood working tools I had. You could also use a thicker, stronger knife blade or whatever other cutting tool you feel comfortable using.
Next up, I traced out my plans for the fin. I wanted a tab on the bottom for when I attached it to the base, this is pretty important to include.
After cutting out the fin shape, I sanded both pieces to make all the ends/edges smooth. I also made the fin more natural looking.
Next I traced out the dimensions of the tab onto the base.
Cut the slot out of the wood, cut inside the lines as you don't want to make it too big. You can always remove more wood if it's too small. In fact, I used some sand paper to smooth out and widened the slot until the tab could be fitted in and hold tight without glue.
Next I started mocking up some ideas for how I would use the plants. I used thumbtacks to hold the plants in place and establish holes in the wood for me to keep track of where the plants would be placed later.
After putting two plants on one side of the fin, it seems like too much so I opted to just put one plant on either side of the fin.
I tried out staggering them.
I also tried putting them directly across from each other in the middle of the fin. In doing so I had pushed through three different placement holes on each side of the fin to choose from later.
I decided I didn't like the grass being taller than a human, so I gave the grass a trim using a pair of scissors. I wanted the very top of the fin to stick out above the tall grass. I also saved the grass clippings and tossed them into a plastic bag in case I needed them later for a different project.
I moved the shorter grass around to see how it looked in different places.
I didn't like how you could see the tall thumb tacks, so I tried out some flat thumb tacks but they ended up being too wide to use in the same way. The grass was forced to fan out when used to hold the plants down, so instead I decided to use the flat thumbtacks to mount the plants on. With that figured out, I started adding paint by giving everything a black base coat.
I then painted the base brown (ie. dirt/earth), the fin grey, and the thumbtack heads green. Use as many coats as you feel you need, and let everything dry before moving on to the next step. I left the center of the thumbtacks free of paint as that is where I'll be applying the glue when attaching the plants, and you want the glue to bond directly to the thumbtack rather than to a layer of paint.
Now I used a glue stick to cover the base with a layer of glue. I was sure to get some glue along the bottom edge of the fin too as I want some of the grass flock to attach there so it looks like the fin is pushing it's way through the earth.
I then used a wire cutter to snip off the bottom half of the thumbtack pins, as they otherwise will push all the way though the wood. You want the pin lenght to just match the width of the wood you are using for the base, since you already used the sharp point to 'drill' the holes earlier you don't really need the sharp pointy part anymore. I ended up going with one plant in the middle hole on one side, and one in the forward most hole on the other.
Now place the base into the jar of flock and cover it completely. I pressed down on the flock here to insure it was going to stick to the glue.
After tapping off all the excess flock that did not get glued down, and wiping away flock that you don't want glued down higher up the fin, you are ready to glue the plants down. I used gorilla glue, dropped the glue right onto each unpainted spot on the tacks and then attached the plants.
And now it's all done!
If you want to keep track of your uncommon Grizzly Sharks easier, try doing different things with each base. Add rocks or dirt to mix thing up and make each one distinct.
July 18th, 2019, 11:34 PM
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