It is surprising to a lot of people how many good terrain pieces can simply be bought ready to go for cheap from a craft or hobby store. If you've got a small budget this is the way to go!
Fabric stores often have on discount weird or exotic fabric types that work great as play mats for wargaming terrain tables. Most won't even need any changes done to them. Honestly when you see playmats from "terrain stores" they're often buying the exact same fabric store mats and marking their retail price up by as much as 4 times! When if you go into the fabric store you'll usually find them on discount. The ones I've picked up I generally picked up at 60-75% off discounts which is a HUGE savings. Not to mention I like seeing stuff in person and having the instant gratification of walking out the door with it.
Not enough players who want some decent tabletop terrain consider hobby and craft store pieces. Your friendly local game store probably doesn't carry model train supplies, but hobby stores often do and many of the items you can find are perfect. Bachmann trains for instance has a lot of trees and vegetation making material which is perfect for any scale of gameplay. See in this video where they are being based and put to use by Terranscapes:
Your local craft store might require more work to find something in the correct scale for 28mm wargaming, but you should be able to find it or modify it without too much difficulty. The extra nice part is that the terrain pieces sold at a craft store tend to be on the very cheap end. Woodland scenics sells a lot of very nice terrain making materials mostly intended for use in school projects or modeling. I've bought some of their trees before and they work very nicely as cheap tabletop terrain throw-downs. You can go a lot further in making elaborate designs with some of their other materials and best yet for those of you new to making your own terrain is that they have a lot of instructional materials as well. Another one in the "love-it but won't admit it" category is Lemax collectables. A lot of these aren't in the correct scale for 28mm gaming, but a fair amount of them are. Gravestones, vineyards, and crypts can be found in the correct scale and they go a long ways towards making a very realistic setting. Plus when can't it be fun to detonate a traditional halloween or christmas display in a fantastic battle of miniatures wargaming?
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