I made this diorama for my younger bro, Wils. Happy B-Day, Willie!
First, you want to cut off the flaps using a knife, then cut out a face.
You want to leave the space in the middle for the river.
Firstly, you'd like to trace out the area around the mushroom container, then cut it out with a knife. I had the cave in a corner, but you can have it anywhere else.
Paint the inside of the container with black paint to make it look dark inside. Then glue some pine needles on the bottom of the container. Once that's done, glue the container to the box.
To make it look like there are vines, I cut some strips of green streamer and taped it on.
I wanted it to look like the river was coming out of a dark tunnel, so I painted on a semi-circle, then taped the greenish, translucent tissue paper on the space in the box. Then I surrounded the river with some rocks and "logs" I found at the Grand Canyon.
The trees are made-up of popsicle sticks set in clay, with some green bag material on the top.
Color the popsicle stick with a brown crayon so that it won't look so pale.
Cut out many pieces of the green material and cut a slit in the middle, fitting it over the popsicle stick. Repeat this process until satisfied with the thickness.
Roll out a ball of clay and stick the stick in it, and flatten out the bottom so it will stand. The remaining part of the stick you can color with a green crayon.
Once the clay is dried, squirt some glue between the spheres/ovals and leave that to dry. Once it is, you can snip off the remaining toothpick that sticks out of the clay. Then you can apply the googly eyes and make expressions on the little monkey heads.
Take a pom-pom (any color), and glue on two googly eyes. Cut out a tiny triangle of yellow foam sheet, and glue that on.
I made six little holes in the cardboard and pulled the pipe cleaner through them, to make something for the birdies to sit atop.
I painted the clay trunk for the trees the color of the stick. You'll notice in the cover photo, that one tree is...a wine color. Yeah, that one was a mistake, but I used it anyway.
Anyway, you're finished! Well, I am.