Miniature Grape Hyacinths - Secrets Revealed

As I will be busy this week getting ready for the Moncton Miniature and Doll Show on Saturday, I thought I'd just write a quick how-to - but without pictures - for the grape hyacinths, as they are very, very simple.


The buds are poppy seeds, glued onto flower wire stems; dip about 3 to 5 mm of the tips in glue, roll in poppy seeds, and shape to a cone shape. This can be fiddly, especially when your poppy seeds seem to be a little bit moist, as mine were, but if you have a problem, pull off your mistake, and start over again. Please compost any gluey poppy seeds....


When they are dry, paint them white. This is the real trick, one I found in a Dutch mini magazine. Let them dry thoroughly. Then I brushed the white poppy seed heads with a half and half mix of satin varnish and Ultra Blue paint; the thinned paint pools between the tiny seeds and really makes the flowers come alive. The original instructions suggested dipping in blue ink, but I don't have any of that in my house any more, so I reached for the next best thing.


The leaves are made with 2.5 cm long, 1 cm wide strips of green paper. Draw thin white lines (colouring pencil) closely spaced all along the strip. Spray with gloss or satin varnish (optional, but strengthens the paper). Cut into a narrow fringed strip, and trim the tips to points. This is a little time-consuming.Then curl the tops of the leaves over gently with a scissors blade. Now grip the end of the strip in your pointy tweezers, roll the strip up and glue the end. I use a small clip to hold the glued end until it dries, but I suspect a hair pin (bobby pin) would also work as a tiny clamp. The curled-over leaves will fan out a little, but when the glue is dry, fan out the tiny leaves some more.


You can now plant the rosette of leaves in your chosen container, with a bit of glue to hold it in place. For "dirt" I tend to use oasis foam, with tea leaves for the dirt glued on top. Then just glue 3 to 5 little grape hyacinth blossoms in the little hole in the leaf rosette. All done!