Distress Inks, Gesso, Flower Overload and Scorched Muslin ........

 

Sadly I didn't make it to the final round of the Swirlydoos Design Team Challenge.  Thank you all so much for your supportive comments and whilst I am disappointed I have had a blast! I have learnt or become familiar with so many different techniques which have been fun and which I know I am going to continue to use in my layouts.

I decided to play along with the final challenge, which was to create a background for the layout using mediums, misting, gesso, etc.

Firstly I used a couple of masks with a Black Staz-On ink pad (a bit old so not so dark) and then blended Distress Inks in various blues and Old Paper onto the cream cardstock. It looked a bit wishy washy so I used Distress Stains and painted them on which looked awful!  Despite spritzing with water, it still looked awful, so I decided to use it all as an experiment and covered the whole lot with gesso, put on with an old credit card.

Loved it!!  So it was back in the running!  When I spritzed it with water, it looked even better.  I just hope I can remember what I did so that I can do it again!!  I added a bit more gesso here and there, and then layered Picket Fence Distress Crackle in various places, with a palette knife and again loved the effect.

We had a sketch to follow  which included the central circle and the rest of the challenge was to include multiple photos, paper layering and distressing and clustering of embellishments.

I had made a heap of flowers at the weekend, just in case, so I was quickly able to put the layout together.

It just needed some leaves, so I decided on some muslin, died with Faded Jeans Distress Stain.  But they don't half scorch when you get impatient and dry them with the heat gun!!!  There is still quite a smell of burnt something upstairs in the house!

I really enjoyed this and will certainly be making my own background paper again (or having a go anyway!).  Not sure about multiple photographs - though it was nice to do the five of us again.  Roll on May and our next holiday together, as I am running out of photographs!

Thanks for looking.  After three glorious days here in Shetland we now have the wind and rain back ..............