Dirt for Miniatures

Today I will be sharing how to make faux dirt in miniature. There are so many ways to do this in the diorama world and many products you can use. As always, I opted to use what I have in my magical basement. One of my friends is fascinated with my basement and all the materials it holds. Funny, because it is pretty tidy but I have a lot of home improvement tools and materials on the shelves.

In the very back of my basement I have a room with left over tiles, grout and some mortar. Grout is something I have used before for faux dirt but this time I am using mortar instead of going out in the summer heat to sift up some dusty dirt, which is a great option if you don’t have mortar.

The grout needs to be a light grey or brown color. I mixed them together. The mortar was a little chunky so I crushed it a little, but kept some of the texture for this project. If you don’t want any chunks, crush it up and pour it into a spray can cap. Use a rubber band to fasten some tulle fabric to it. Then when you shake it, it will come out fine.

Get a small spray bottle and add a mix of water and plain white glue (not tacky). You want it to be watery not thick. Shake it up and spray the surface where you will be applying “dirt”. I am using a scrap sheet of gator board for this demonstration.

FYI - The area I am applying dirt is under the Timber Cabin deck and hard to photograph. I had to sprinkle the mixture with a spoon because there was no room to shake the lid full of “dirt”. I also used a small piece of card stock to protect the stone work when I sprayed the glue mixture onto the surface area.

Shake your cap full of the mixture over the wet glue mixture until it is covered. Let it soak in. Once it is dry, if you see uncovered areas, you can repeat the process. I painted my base a dirt color before I started because it was a difficult space to be able to see if every little section was covered. I sprayed a top coat as well.

Depending on how much realism you want, you can also crush some real leaves and herbs and sprinkle them on top of the dirt. I added some crushed maples leaves and basil. I blew in the basil off my hand so it spread out under the deck. I added some white glue along the edge of the stone work and pressed the crumpled leaves in it and let them dry. I also found some tiny rocks and glued them in. Get creative and add all sorts of things to your dirt!

Crushed maple leaf

Basil

If you want a touch of grass here and there you can get these easy to use grass tufts. They come in different colors! I used them at the base of my steps.

Have fun creating!