Confined to Barracks...

Hi my friends, With the weather putting a damper on my plans to spend the weekend in the garden, I retreated to the cubbyhole to try and make a dent in the box of backgrounds I've made, inspired by the amazing, fun and inspirational Saturday night Facebook Lives over at Tim and Mario's place. This is definitely the highlight of my "10 weeks confined to barracks quarantine" week, the in-place to be on a Saturday night if you are a Distress Lover. No need to dress up or spend hours applying the polyfilla, just turn up in your jammies with your Wurzel Gummidge hair, and enjoy a glass of wine, a bowl of snacks and all the demos in the company of lots of crafty friends.  So let's kick off with the Wrinkle Free Distress backgrounds, fun to make but they did require much pondering and several cups of coffee before I was in the "I know what I can make" zone

 and decided to make journal card pockets to use in my Collection Folio "floral theme" project.

Busy and colourful backgrounds make a great backdrop for a little bit of collage layering, so I spread out  the Field Notes Ephemera on my workdesk and arranged on the backgrounds until I was happy with each layout.

I fixed the Ephemera in place with Distress Collage Medium Matte and applied a layer over the entire background, lightly so as not to re-active the Distress inks. I added shadows around the Ephemera pieces using a Walnut Stain Distress Crayon.

I added splatters of White Gouache

Tim Holtz/Sizzix Stacked Circles Thinlits to die-cut a notch

and fixed the panels to kraft card to create the pocket.

On this one, before adding the Ephemera, I stamped the dragonfly from Tim Holtz/Stampers Anonymous Classics #1 on to the panel, inked with Ground Espresso Distress Archival ink and coloured the wings and body using Rusty Hinge and Peeled Paint Distress Oxide inks using a Distress Detailer Brush. I tapped Black Soot Distress ink on to the back of the Halftone Layering Stencil, spritzed with water and pressed randomly on to the panel to create a mono print effect. I applied Distress Translucent Grit Paste through the Tangled Layering Stencil, sprinkled with Rusty Hinge and Peeled Paint Distress Embossing Glazes and heat set once the paste had dried.

 I tucked them safely into the Collection Folio until I'm ready to make a start

I've decided that this confined to barracks regime ain't so bad and think I am coping pretty well with the situation but you may not agree when I tell you that every morning for the last few weeks, while I enjoy my first coffee of the day, I've been having a conversation with a chubby thrush who, regular as clockwork, flies on to the grass, dances around to attract the worms to the surface and cheeps back at me while he gobbles his breakfast feast AND at around 4.00pm every day, a couple of wood pigeons fly on to the trellis and entertain me with their courtship ritual. Lots of bobbing of heads, shaking of tail feathers, neck snuggling and canoodling which sometimes leads to a bit of hanky panky, so who knows, they may soon be announcing the arrival of babies, taking my lockdown entertainment to a whole new level.

In the meantime, I'm going to have a go at the foiling techniques shared by Tim on his Instagram Story collaboration with Heidi Swapp, I don't have a Minc or Toner Ink and who knows, it may be an adapt and overcome triumph or a mega fail- watch this space, kind of a day.

Toodle-oo for now

Hugs Kath xxx

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