A Forest Floor in Miniature

Walk through a Michigan woods in spring and look down. On the old stumps you'll often find oyster mushrooms stacked in creamy shelves, and if you're lucky, a few morels are poking up through the leaf litter nearby. We love finding scenes like this when we go mushroom hunting, and this piece is our attempt to bring one home.

What's in the scene

The centerpiece is a tree stump 3D printed in walnut-colored plastic to match the bark of a real forest stump. Around it we built out the forest floor:

• A flush of oyster mushrooms growing up the trunk
• Morel mushrooms popping up around the base
• Small branches and logs scattered like the last windstorm left them
• A few rocks, and fallen leaves from last season

The leaves are cut from assorted cardstock and placed by hand, one at a time, and parts of the stump are hand-painted. No two come out exactly alike, which is the point.

The real mushrooms behind it

Oyster mushrooms grow on dead and dying hardwood, breaking down the wood and recycling it into new soil. They're named for their fan-shaped caps, which look like the shell of an oyster. Morels are the famous spring treasure of the Midwest. They're hard to find, hard to grow on purpose and worth the hunt, as we explain in our morel figurine story.

Where to put it

• In a fairy garden, as the old stump the fairies live beside
• Inside a terrarium, with moss and a little cork bark
• On a bookshelf among nature books and field guides
• On a mantel or desk, for anyone who loves the woods year-round

Because of the hand-placed paper leaves, it's happiest indoors or in a covered fairy garden, out of the rain.

Grow the scene

Scatter a few extra printed morels around it in different sizes to fill out the forest floor.

Want a different mushroom, or colors to match your garden? Ask us about a custom stump.