The Ikea Bag Time Capsule

Supported by (Turn Off)

Project Entry by gorram

Day 2 - Ground Cover, Bases and Inspiration

October 16, 2023

Having already spent £23 on plastic plants for a project I wasn’t going to spend anything on, I wanted to find a way to feel less like a weak-willed consumer.

The obvious plan would have been to go out and buy a big bag of cheap mixed herbs for the ground coverage. I still might have to do that but I also know myself well enough to know it isn’t just in hobby spending that I embrace capitalism in unhelpful ways. I’m a sucker for a new jar of herbs for a recipe I cook once and then leave them to spend eternity in the herb and spice drawer; only being touched to move them out of the way when looking for something else. Sure enough, I found three jars in ten seconds all of which have been open far too long to be of any use imparting flavour.

Mixing them together doesn’t give a huge amount to work with so I may need to be a little inventive in building layers of texture under them to fake it. Then I remembered that I have a bunch of teabags from a “I’ll try drinking herbal teas to be better for my health than the builder’s brew I usually drink” phase. Perfect.

Day 2 - Ground Cover, Bases and Inspiration

Next up was figuring out the basing for the terrain. I have a bunch of the pond bases from Warbases that are great for those of us without power tools or buckets of patience. Rather than trying to do all of them all at once, I started with six… mostly because that was what fit on my cutting board.

Bevelling the edges with a good Stanley knife then some gentle sanding to get them ready to be terrain. Then I got some Das clay out of the stash, it is a little dried out but still workable, esp if you leave it to hang out in water for 30 seconds before kneading. To get it to stick to the mdf I just wet the surface of the base with water and pushed the clay about. I’m not really aiming for anything other than “not flat land”.

Time to leave them to dry.