Stir well after adding 1/4 cup of coffee grounds to the glue mixture. The resulting dirt will be wet but not sloppy. A small amount should readily clump into a solid piece when pressed between your fingers.
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Adding the Dirt to Your Plant
It’s generally easiest to spread the faux mud with your fingers.
This plant will be in a different location once I start decorating for the summer.
Finally, allow the mixture to thoroughly dry, and your fake plant will have dirt that looks real.
I hope you consider trying to make DIY fake dirt. It only takes a few minutes to make this craft, which gives fake plants a realistic appearance.
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You can easily buy (or find) potting soil, which is relatively clean, so why not use real dirt instead?
An alternative is coffee grounds. You can combine it with water and some black ink to make it as dark as regular soil.
In both situations, it’s best to wait until it dries completely before mixing it with resin or (possibly slightly watered-down) glue inside a Tupperware container or a paper cup. This makes it easier to cut away and uses less material.
The resin or glue must be waterproof (in the event that the plant is unintentionally watered), transparent (to let the (fake) dirt steal the show), hard curing (to keep everything in place), and preferably matte drying (as glossy dirt will appear unnaturally wet or muddy). For this, a variety of resins and glues can be utilized; wood glue, for instance, will do just fine. Visit the hardware store that is closest to you, and look around or ask someone
To achieve their goals, model train enthusiasts must be resourceful. I jumped online to research how they do it because some of them can be extremely demanding.
One site, cs.trains.com suggests using powdered paint from Crayola:
The link is broken, but searching for the product brought up a number of links to purchase powdered tempera paint, which appears to be the same stuff.
Where can you get good dirt if not from a train layout maker?
Make a pot of coffee for yourself (or, if you have a cool Keurig machine, a cup of coffee for yourself) But for the love of God, don’t discard the coffee grounds! That’s a waste. On a cookie sheet, spread out some paper towels or, if you’d rather, a dry, clean paper coffee filter. Place the cookie tray somewhere secure to dry for a few days after spreading the used grounds out onto the paper in a thin layer. Slide the grounds and the paper towel underneath into a large ziploc bag once they are completely dry. To remove the grounds from the paper towel, close the bag and tap it a few times. (Occasionally it sticks a little, so you might have to use your fingers to actually brush it off. ) Take the paper towel out and toss it. Voila. You have fake dirt.
I discovered this while creating gardens for my miniatures. It’s not always ideal to use dirt to depict dirt. The problem with real dirt, however, is that it doesn’t adhere to surfaces very well. And when making miniatures, it doesn’t even look like dirt. It looks like crap.
When it dries, the coffee loses its coffee scent and remains a rich, dark color similar to moist dirt. You can mix it with glue and fill tiny pots. For larger areas, you can spread glue over styrofoam, cardboard, or wood and sprinkle the coffee grounds on top of it (lightly pressing them into the glue with your finger). You can seal it if you’d like by applying a thin layer of decoupage glue. Its great for all sorts of projects.