Earlier in the summer I finished the garden for my puzzle house—all except the trellis. I wasn’t sure how to make it look like it had vines woven through it without adding too much bulk to the back to attach it to the house. Yesterday, with my mom’s help, I did the deed… and it turned out pretty nice!

I made this 1:24 trellis out of strip wood, using a 1:12 trellis I bought at the dollhouse store as a guide. The vines and flowers are pieces of plastic plants from Michaels and Ben Franklin Crafts.

Step 1: Attach vines to the trellis. This was a little tricky because there weren’t many contact points. I used Quick Grip and glued down each vine in a few different spots, using a toothpick to apply the glue, then squeezing the vine onto the wood until the glue took. The Quick Grip got stringy and made a bit of a mess, but it’s not too obvious.

Step 2: Attach flowers to the vines. When snipped from their plastic stems, these flowers have a nice smooth bottom that made them easy to attach to the vines using Tacky Glue.

Step 3: Attach the trellis to the house. Easier said than done! I spread Tacky Glue along the back edges of the trellis and held it in place with masking tape while the glue dried. It was touch and go at first but now that the glue has dried, it seems like it’ll hold.

Step 4: Step back and admire! Now the landscaping is truly finished.

In other puzzle house news, last week I built a couple of Daisy House kits to go inside the house. I made the plant stand to use as a washstand in the bedroom. (I would have made their washstand but it’s only available in one inch scale…)

I shortened the legs a bit and will probably still add a decorative lip to the back (but not to the sides, or the plate the pitcher is sitting on won’t fit!)

The second kit was the Daisy House writing desk. I think it goes nicely with one of my scratch built ladderback chairs. A confusing part in the directions led me to glue the desk together slightly off center, but I added a piece of wood to the back to hide the mistake.

In general, though, the instructions in these kits were very clear and the pieces were perfectly cut to size. They were a lot easier to put together than the Cassidy Creations country bed and dresser kit I did recently.