Chris, Jill, and Vickie - Thank you!
Thanks also for the heads-up about PYM II. I will have to see if I can find that spray product somewhere around here or perhaps mail order it. I did spray my pieces with a clear coat poly spray but I don't know if it is as good as PYM II.
Jill - You are correct .... those little houses are mini birdhouses that I paid a $1 for at various stores (Walmart, Dollar Store, and Michael's Crafts). They were really popular a couple years ago. I am sure that Michael's Craft Store still sells them. The aluminum buckets were on clearance at Walmart this past November for $5 or $6 each, so I grabbed several of them. Wished I had bought more of them now. They do still sell the metal ones (not painted), but the price is higher. I had to drill holes in the bottom of each bucket for drainage, but that wasn't hard to do.
These were so much fun to make and design. I also bought a big bucket of plastic farm animals that contained different sizes of the same animals. So I can make larger scenes or make those smaller scenes. I have various sizes of containers around my gardens, so plan to use the bigger animals in some of those to make a larger scale scene.
I have plans to make more Hypertufa containers this summer. Maybe some larger sized. Family and friends love to look at the scenes I've made. My granddaughters especially enjoy them. I tell them that the fairies and plastic animals come to life at night.
I am now thinking I should go back and get the dinosaurs plastic creatures that have the same variety of sizes.