Tiki Fairy Garden

I saw these Tiki torches for miniature fairy gardens in a local garden supply store.

They are sold by a company called Fiddlehead and it turns out they have some other related items too. The pictures below are from the internet.

. . .

Has anyone used these, or other items, to make a miniature tiki fairy garden?

Oh my...those are very cute!!! Thanks for posting.

the blue torch looks like Beavis...

I like the idea of fairy gardens, but I don't have a yard. Mine would be a bit darker themed than the cute figures shown. Maybe I could make a Papua New Guinea themed terrarium with miniature Sepik style carvings.
There are several manufacturers of garden miniatures. On etsy.com you can find handmade fairy garden/diorama/dollhouse items.

I've been fooling around with fishbowl dioramas, and can definitely see a use for these. Thanks for the head's up!

bump

This gives me one of my good ideas.

For couple years I have subscribed to Garden Railways magazine with intention of modeling President Lincoln's funeral train in 1:20.3 G scale. And using the railroad to serve drinks.

Problem: Funeral train does not put the fun back in funeral. President Lincoln not party animal.

But tiki train is. And tiki train does not need specific steam locomotive.

A geared logging locomotive which ordinarily looks out of place on anything but a logging railroad can be used. I would like to see a rivet counter (model railroader who is critical if minute detail overlooked) say, "Oh hell no! Fairies don't run Heisler locomotives!"

And just in case, I will learn Photoshop and have incontrovertible proof that Heislers are the only damn locomotives fairies do run. Take that, rivet boy!

Kenbo-jitsu, forty years from now when I am in golden retirement years happily working under the summer sun in the garden on my tiki train, I will think of you.

I might even buy tiki fairies and torches.

On 2016-03-09 19:25, Veronica! wrote:
This gives me one of my good ideas.

For couple years I have subscribed to Garden Railways magazine with intention of modeling President Lincoln's funeral train in 1:20.3 G scale. And using the railroad to serve drinks.

Problem: Funeral train does not put the fun back in funeral. President Lincoln not party animal.

But tiki train is. And tiki train does not need specific steam locomotive.

You can always do a model of a Hawaii plantation train. For example: http://www.aloha-hawaii.com/maui/sugar-cane-train/ and http://www.kauaiplantationrailway.com/rrhist.htm

I think it would be kind of neat to build around a "pre-Tiki" feature like a steam train... Go for more of the colonial aesthetic of the late Kingdom of Hawaii or early Territory of Hawaii periods (e.g.: Moana Hotel) or the Twenties (e.g.: Royal Hawaiian Hotel), something like that.

On 2016-03-09 20:21, EnchantedTikiGoth wrote:
...
You can always do a model of a Hawaii plantation train....

Sort of like this:

Photo by Joe Banks, found in the Manhattan Beach Fry's thread.

On 2016-03-09 20:32, Hakalugi wrote:

On 2016-03-09 20:21, EnchantedTikiGoth wrote:
...
You can always do a model of a Hawaii plantation train....

Sort of like this:

Photo by Joe Banks, found in the Manhattan Beach Fry's thread.

Yes. I rode Lahaina, Kaanapali and Pacific Railroad Sugar Cane Train. Exactly what I am thinking, too.

The locomotive and sugar cane wagons in the photograph are G gauge. And accurate depiction of plantation equipment. Koloa Sugar owned Paulo (Hohenzollern #426, 1887, Romania).

From Wikipedia: "While field railways ran on “literally little more than panels of snap-track laid and re-laid across the fields as the seasonal cutting progressed,” more permanent right-of-ways were soon established to provide freight and passenger service from mills to ports, where raw sugar was packed aboard ocean-going ships bound for California refineries. An engineer, sent to Kauai from Honolulu in 1898, took the train from Waimea, on the coast, to the Kilauea Plantation’s Kekaha mill, situated in the midst of the cane fields, and he described the trip:

"The railroad is a cute affair, only 30 inch gauge—cars mostly flat for hauling cane and sugar in bags….All cars are no more than 4 feet wide….Engines… are regular toys—they weigh about eight tons….[We] bowled over the four miles of toy railroad to the headquarters of the Plantation….They have engineer only—no fireman—no breakman. No breaks on cars."

Cute. Toy-like. No brakes, manual or Westinghouse. Description of tracks leaves impression of railroad in Our Hospitality.

So. Geared logging locomotives hopelessly too large. Also, possibly finding European version of link and pin couplers.

Cursory research very surprising. Lehmann Gross Bahn of Germany released two limited edition 0-4-2 Baldwin Hawaiian plantation locomotives, Chloe (originally Pokaa) and Olomana. LGB scheduled to reintroduce sugar cane wagons Spring 2016.

Uncertain of existence of bonsai palm trees. Which would require wintering indoors.

The photograph brought back fond memories of assisting nieces and nephews with volcano dioramas. The youngest proved most challenging. She does not care for science. She is tea-party-with-dolls type. As completion neared, she began building huts. There are tribes on undiscovered islands in the Pacific with no previous outside contact who knew what was coming next. Girls to live in the huts. Specifically AKB48.

I was proven wrong. Island inhabited by AKB48. And white kitties with pink bows.

Somehow was awarded an A+. So. My third grade science project record remains intact.

The game is afoot! Cherchez la tiki!