speaking of tripods, I have a professional grade tripod for most uses, but it is of limited value on the layout. Instead I use a very light and very cheap ($1!) foldy thingy. It's more important in this case that is be able to get the camera down really low to the surface to simulate more of a "people view" perspective. I can place my little pod anywhere on the layout without any damage and within an inch or so of the surface. It won't support my dSLR, I usually use my ancient Coolpix 950 for this purpose. It needs to be very rigid, but not so big.
For the shots, a camera that has Aperture Priority can give better results than macro mode (altho that is very useful at other times).
Set up the camera on the tripod, compose the shot, set it to aperture priority and dial in the smallest (BIG #) aperture you can. (keep the flash OFF!) Set it to time delay and shoot. The small aperture will increase the depth of field, meaning more of the shot will be in focus.
In fact, you can look to see what the minimum aperture is while shopping, it will be called something like "f2.8-24". The bigger that 2nd number, the better. 26-28s is good; 30+ better.
The downside is that your shutter will be incredibly long, like several seconds. Hence the need for a tripod and time delay (a remote can substitute time delay in this case). You simply cannot hand hold a camera still enough with very long shutters. In the case of my layout, that means no movement anywhere near them to avoid vibrations. Don't touch the camera, tripod or the layout or it could blur. I've often wound up with 3-4 second exposures which is darn near a lifetime. A slammed door can spoil it!
The reason the macro mode is still important is that it determines the shortest distance at which the camera can focus. In many cases, without macro, the camera can't focus on anything closer than say 12-24". In model work, you need to focus on stuff with in a few inches. The macro lens jsut by being there will help a bit even if not used in the macro mode (and using macro mode and aperture priority mode can't be done at the same time in most cases).
But the best advice: practice, practice, practice!