Miniature Christmas trees from Walmart

At some time before last Christmas while at Walmart I came across miniature Christmas trees. 6" ones were $1 each. 9" were $2 and smaller 74 cents. Some of them were covered in snow, others in glitter. I bought few smaller covered in snow. I figured I could possibly get off most of the snow with a wire brush or similar tool. Then I would spray paint them green and after paint dried sprinkle on some scenic grass. This is something I have yet to try.

It is no secret that majority of Christmas merchandise goes on sale next day. I didn't get out until the second day so my selection wasn't as big as it possibly could have been. All it was left was several
9" tall Christmas trees in glitter and some ornamental stuff.

I decided to give it a try and see if I can cover up all that glitter. This is where I am at with this experiment. After spraying with green paint some of the glitter is still showing through. I am hoping that after I sprinkle the trees with ground foam and hit with the dulcote the sparkles will disappear.

Building Trawler by Maritime Art Pt.3

Finally I will be able to get back to building what I like most. It was educational to do something else other than structures for a change but I won't be switching hobbies. I don't exclude possibility of building more boats in the future though. I would like to construct a layout with a waterfront so a boat or two will be must. For the time being I am going back to working on the structures.

Building Duffy's Coal by FSM Pt. 2

FOS Scale Models has new web site. It is www.fosscalemodels.com and it is completely re-designed. It is all around well done but the best part of it is large pictures. They showcase the kits much better than the old site. It makes me reach for my wallet...
When it comes to Duffy's I don't have much to say. It is moving along and if I don't make any mistakes then it will fall together without too much effort.

Building Utility boat by Maritime Art Pt.1

Finally I am picking up some speed. First two or so weeks after coming back from Europe were tough. It was hard to get in a mood to build something. At some point I even thought I was going to give up the hobby. In addition the second season of The 100 came recently out on Netflix which I have been waiting for for quite some time... Yes, I did some serious binge TV watching. I hadn't done anything like this since I got Netflix streaming service and discovered Lost. That was in about 2009. So... I have caught up with all the shows I had DVRed as well so I am ready to do some serious damage to my stash of the kits and the pile of unfinished projects.
Before I did any rigging on the trawler I viewed it as being extremely intimidating. I had my reason. Provided diagrams are useless, many pictures on the CD that comes with the kit are out of focus or show something else other than rigging, the manual is full of unfamiliar terms. No surprise that got into deep procrastination mode. However, since I've had the trawler and the utility boat in my possession for about a year I felt quite guilty. I wanted to make some progress but in no way I could get myself out of procrastination so instead I started working on the utility boat. I should have started with it though. It is simpler. The hull is of better quality And the rigging isn't that complicated. It came with extra detail pack included so instead of one boom my version will have two. That adds some extra rigging as well which I am about to start working on. However after all I would have been better off had I started with the utility boat.