comes up with the stats and roster for the Rust Devils in his sci-fi campaign.I was in need of some alien vegetation for my Hive Mind army, so when I saw a lone pack of cotton pods at Dollar Tree, I saw some possibilities and bought it.
From what I understand, crafters hot-glue these pods onto twigs and make decorative displays. The ones at the dollar store cost $1.25 USD per pack.
Except… the pack I purchased cost one cent! So I went around to some other stores until I had all the pods I needed, and it didn't even cost me a dollar! 
I eventually found out that the cotton pods were supposed to be on a recall, and weren't supposed to be on the shelves! But nobody could tell me why! A manager told me that when a cashier sees a one-cent price on the register, they are supposed to call a manager, and then the manager is supposed to tell you that the items can't be sold. The stores should have received a notice to yank all of the pods from the shelves. But I got lucky and got mine!
As far as I can tell, these are actual cotton pods that have been dried out. In some cases, something like hot glue has been used to secure the cotton in place. I found three types of pack: small (four pods per pack, too small for my purposes), medium (three per pack), and large (two per pack). Some of the pods have full leaves and a single cotton ball, but most have four or five balls and curled leaves.
Some of the pods have brown wires inserted at the base (easily pulled out once you untwist them).
For bases, I used flower-shaped wooden chalkboard ornaments. These come five to a pack for $1.25 USD at the dollar store, but may have been discontinued as they are now hard to find.
I put a sticker over the hole (for hanging the ornament), applied a bit of spackle to hide the edges, and spray-painted the non-black side either brown or tan (my brown paint clogged).
When the bases were dry, I applied white glue to one side, and dipped them into my flock bucket. Once that dried, I sealed the flock with a spray of clear matte paint.
I wanted an alien look, and I wanted to use an inexpensive craft paint, so I checked my collection of Acryology acrylic paints and selected magenta. (Note that this seems to be discontinued at the dollar store, replaced with a lighter tone called pink.) For the leaves, I used a very old Coat d'Arms paint – probably spring green, but the label just says #8.
For my prototypes, I experimented with painting the cotton, and found that using a wash worked best. Cotton is a strange material to paint, takes color easily, but you have to be gentle or the cotton will pull or distort, sometimes revealing more unpainted cotton!
Fortunately, the leaves were easily painted. I realized that with most of the pods, flipping them over made the leaves more visible.
The end result was pretty much what I was looking for, but painting the cotton was time-consuming. So I looked for a faster technique…
Using an inexpensive ramekin, I mixed up a magenta wash.
I then put a cotton pod in the wash, then flipped it over to make sure it was thoroughly soaked with the wash.
I then put the soaked cotton pods on paper towels in an old box until they dried.
I wasn't sure if this would work. I thought maybe the pod would just fall apart in the wash, or the leaves would soften, or maybe the pods would take a long time to dry. But it worked, and they were dry in a day. They did need to be carefully separated from the paper towels.
Warning! Magenta paint (well, the one I used) stains! It stains countertops, towels, fingers and fingernails! So be careful.
I then painted the leaves green, and touched up the magenta as needed.
Here is the final result. I'll be playing Alien Squad Leader, so this is an 8" by 8" patch of brush. I'm using shelf liner to designate the area, and the terrain pieces simply mark the type of terrain.
As you can see, the terrain pieces can be moved to make room for miniatures. The shelf liner, however, does not move during a game.
Someone asked to see the painted shelf liner in action, so here are some painted cotton pods on green-painted shelf liner.
Here is a medium patch of alien brush – 12" by 12" – using gray shelf liner as a base.
And this is the largest size I'll be using, 16" by 16".
My 16 painted cotton pods are a good start, but the rules allow me to have multiple large areas of brush… and I still have more cotton pods!