Candy Cauldron - Raised Die Cut Technique

This Candy Cauldron treat box was such a fun piece to make. I was looking at the delightful Sweet Treats candy die cuts and the fabulous Cauldron bigz die and as I was mulling over them, my mind kept going back to a trip I took to Salem, Massachusetts with my mom and sister several years ago while we were in Boston for my sister's cancer treatments.

While in Salem, we visited the House of Seven Gables, the inspiration for Nathaniel Hawethorne's novel and where his birthplace has moved. I love the dark grey, weathered wood siding on the house.

Directly across the street was America's oldest candy store, Ye Olde Pepper Companie Candies, founded in 1806.

Of course they had lots of delicious candies and sweets, but that day, being the history lover that I am, I had to try the historical candies that were displayed in copper cauldrons. The Black Jacks were a molasses chip candy and the Gibralters were a hard candy as well that came in lemon and peppermint. My sister got the butterscotch chips.

It was with this candy store in mind that I wanted to make a display that I thought would fit perfectly on a counter or shelf in their store, so this is the outcome.

The main technique I want to focus on in this post is how to make the raised designs on this piece. I'm calling it a raised die cut technique.

I used a large Etcetera Tag and a Vignette Drawer to make this piece.

The tag was too tall for the Vignette Drawer, so I cut off 4-5 inches to make the height ratio of tag to drawer fit better.

 I began by cutting the smallest candy die cuts and some bats from the Bat Crazy dies out of a thick cardstock. This is a #130 weight cardstock.

 Each candy piece has several pieces that you layer on top of them to make colorful interesting candies. But for this technique, you only need to cut the base pieces several times. Enough to fit all around the outside of the large Etcetera Tag that I used as a backing.

 I had to make another one for step out photos for this tutorial so my step out photos are using the 2nd smallest Vignette Boxes and the #8 Etcetera Tag. As I said before, for my actual piece, I used the Large Etcetera tag and the Vignette Drawer as the base.
I drew a line on the tag to show me where the candy border needed to end.

 I placed the candy pieces along the border and then when I was happy with their placement I adhered them with Distress Collage Medium.

 I also attached the bats to the drawer. Here I attached bats and candy to the front and side of the small Vignette Box.

 You want a layer of Collage Medium on the box and then over the die cut once it is securely in place.

 Here you can see the pieces all adhered to the boxes and the tag. Bear in mind you would do these same steps to the large tag and Vignette Drawer.

 Paint the pieces with Black Soot Distress Paint.

 Once it is dry, put a light covering of Hickory Smoke Distress Paint over it.

 Then lightly wipe away excess Hickory Smoke paint while it is still wet, revealing the die cut shapes.

 Once the paint is dry, get out Walnut Stain and Black Soot Distress Crayons.

 Scribble some of the Walnut Stain Distress Crayon over the die cuts.

 Rub it in with a slightly damp finger.

 It will look something like this. Remember, only slightly damp or it will look much differently.

 Then scribble some of the Black Soot Distress Crayon onto the die cuts.

 Rub it in with a slightly damp finger.

It should look like this when you are done. I was going for the distress grey wood look that is on so many buildings in Salem, including the House of Seven Gables.

You can see how it looks on the Vignette Drawer and tag.

For the Mini Hardware I put a little bit of Grit Paste on it and then painted it the same way as the wood pieces.

I have used this Raised Die Cut Technique in many different ways and it is very easy to change the look and feel of a piece just by changing the dies and the colors of Distress Paint and Distress Crayons that you use.For example, you could make one of these same pieces with the candy border, but change out the bats for other candy pieces and then paint it red or green for Christmas, or bright colors for a birthday or Easter.
As with all techniques, just take the time to practice, experiment,  and see what works best for you, but have fun.
Thank you for stopping by, and if you have any questions, please contact me through the form at the right.
Tami

I am an affiliate with Simon Says Stamp and Scrapbook.com so the links below send you to one of those stores depending on which logo you choose.  If you wish to purchase something from either store and use one of my links below, I get a small percentage of your order, at no additional cost to you. This helps me to defray the costs of this blog, the time, the ideas and tutorials I post here. Your help is greatly appreciated! Thank you!

Halloween Ideaology 2019 - Etcetera Tags and Trims

 

There is just so much great product in the 2019 Halloween Ideaology release from Tim Holtz and Advantus! With each release I find that I want to use so much of the product ,but end up only using a small portion.  So this year I vowed to use up as much as I can so I can enjoy it all and not just squirrel it away in my stash.

These #8 Etcetera Tags and Etcetera Trims are part of what inspired this project.The Etcetera Tags from Stampers Anonymous come in 5 sizes: Large, Medium, Small, Mini and #8 (or I call them "Tiny.") You get five #8 Etcetera Tags in a package for $5.99
The Etcetera Trims come in three styles: Bracket, Pinking, and Scallop. There are five sets of thin and thick trims in three widths each. So you get five of each size and width in each pack for $5.99. Such a great deal!
To make this project I used one package of #8 Tags and used trims from the pinking and bracket trim styles.

I gathered a bunch of things from my Halloween 2019 Ideaology stash and got to work. Some of the things you will definitely want to consider using are: the beautiful Abandoned paper stash for your base, then the new Halloween Quote Chips, Hardware Heads, Ephemera Pack, Tokens, Curiosities Sticker Book, and Paper Dolls.  Optional things would be Design Tape, Mummy Cloth to tie through the top of the tag, and other odds and ends left over from your Halloween makes.

As you can see from the photo above I explained how I put all the tags together. Each tag was assembled in the same basic design format.
1. Cover the tag and the trim by tracing around them on the back of the paper you want to use.
2. Cut the paper along the traced lines. This is a little bit of a pain on the pinking trim seen above, but worth it and the sanding covers and mistakes.
3. Attach the paper to the tag and the trim with Distress Collage medium.
4. Cut the trim to fit the width of the tag. I used my Tonic Scissors to do this and then lightly sanded the end of the trim.
5. Next I sanded around all the edges of the tag and trim, allowing the white core of the paper to show, but didn't ink it because I thought the white kind of tied all the bits together.
6. Attach the trim to the bottom of the tag by putting a little bit of Collage Medium on the top of the trim and the bottom of the tag and then holding them together tightly until the Collage Medium takes hold and they stick together. You will need to be careful with the tag for a few hours until it really dries, so keep it flat as you work on the others.

1. On each tag, add some Ephemera collage it onto the tag. 
2. A Quote Chip attached to the bottom of each tag where the trim and tag meet. 
3. Hardware Heads on each end of the quote chip.  
4. Pop up the Paper Doll with Chipboard or dimensional adhesive, or I cut up some of the quote chips I knew I would never use so they were the same height as the Quote Chip. When you attach them, I attached their feet to the top of the quote chip for stability.
5. Add a Token to the Paper Doll 
6. Choose some Clippings Stickers to tell a story about the Paper Doll. (This is my favorite part! I love looking through the Clipping stickers to make up stories about the Paper Dolls. LOL!)

These twins had a treacherous imagination that haunted them. One other thing to point out here is that I colored the 31 with Distress Ink so it tied the green paper on the trim with the top of the tag.

This blueish purple paper in the Abandoned stash is beautiful!  I really love it. I thought it went perfectly with this Clown Paper Doll. Since I used the Masquerade Quote chip, I put a mask on Dorothy from the Sizziz Masks Die Set Tim just released. They fit the Paper Dolls!

On this one I used a Quote Token from the Adornment Charms. I thought the quote went well with the fact that Dorothy liked spooky things.

Another Quote chip on this one. I went with the double trouble theme on this one with the twins. Again, I added green to the 31 to tie in the trim.

I forgot to mention that I sprayed all of the Paper Dolls that I was using in this project with a layer of Distress Resist Spray. I let it dry and then sprayed them again and dried. This gave them a mottle, shiny clear covering and it also added to their stability.

I used a lot of the stickers from the Sticker Book on this one. The bugs in the sticker book are smaller than the ones in the Ephemera so they fit better. These two just look like they are planning mischief don't they?

You have been warned!

This is Rosalie. Sadly she is surrounded by toxic things and will eventually lose her mind. I don't know exactly what happened, but I think it had something to do with poison and her fascination with it eventually drove her crazy.

Well, at this point I hope you don't think I have lost my mind! Although I wouldn't blame you if you did.
This was a fun, simple way to use my Halloween stash and to make things that could be decor pieces, place settings, made into a banner, gifts for friends, party favors...sky is the limit.
Have fun!
Tami

I am an affiliate with Simon Says Stamp and Scrapbook.com so the links below send you to one of those stores depending on which logo you choose. If you wish to purchase something from either store and use one of my links below, I get a small percentage of your order, at no additional cost to you. This helps me to defray the costs of this blog and the ideas and tutorials I post here, and your help is greatly appreciated! Thank you! 

Botanical Tag - Tim Holtz Chapter 2 Dies

It's Spring! And with the coming of spring we have some new Chapter 2 dies from Tim Holtz and Sizzix. I made this botanical tag as a sample for Tim's garden shed Sizzix booth at Creativation 2019.

It showcases one of the NEW Sizzix Chapter 2 dies called Potted that I paired with one of the Chapter 1 die sets called Wildflower Stems 2

To highlight the various ways the Potted die can be used, I cut three large tags from the Stacked Tags die set, and then picked one of the Wildflower Stems 2 to be growing out of it. 

I colored each tag with some Hickory Smoke and Pumice Stone Distress ink using the "wrinkle-free Distress method."

For the first tag, I picked the daisy stem, cut three of them from Distress Mixed Media Heavystock,  and watercolored them with Distress Inks.

 

On the first tag, I made the barrel. I colored some Distress Woodgrain Cardstock with brown Distress Inks, and then cut out the main bucket shape. I cut out a second bucket shape from chipboard. Then I cut the woodgrain bucket into vertical strips to mimic the boards that make a bucket. The bands were cut from Distress Mixed Media Heavystock and then colored with Distress Inks. I finished it off with two of the small Hexnut Hardware Heads colored with Alcohol Inks to make them look old and rusted.

The second tag has purple salvia growing out of an old, mossy terra cotta pot.

I cut three of this shape from the Wildflower Stems 2 set and watercolored them green and various purples.  These could be lavendar, or liriope, or I chose to make them salvia.

For this potted sample I went with the terra cotta pot version.  You can make the pots two ways.  You can cut the back as the main, tall pot/bucket/barrel size, or as I did here, I used the smaller size pot which can double as a center band for the taller pot. This made my terra cotta pot a little shorter than the other two on this piece but I like the option of having it both ways. I colored it with Distress Ink and then sealed it with Distress Collage Medium Matte.
For the moss, I pounced some grit paste onto the terra cotta pot with my finger, let it dry, and then colored it with Peeled Paint Distress Crayon.

For the last tag, I went with the Tiger Day Lily in a aged galvanized bucket.

I cut three of the daylily stems and colored them with Distress Inks just like the other three.

For the aged galvenized bucket, I cut both the small and large container shapes. I colored them with Distress Oxides and Distress Inks. Then I cut the No7 from the Numbers die set. I colored the cut out pieces with Black Soot Distress Ink and then inserted them back into the spaces so that it kind of looks like the numbers were stenciled onto the bucket.

The labels for all of the flowers were cut from a NEW Alphanumeric called just that, Label.  It's one of my new favorite alphabets. It's tiny and you can cut a ton of words for even a small space. Look at all those letters in this set!

All of these tags were adhered to a large Etcetera Tag that had been aged with Ranger's Opaque Crackle Paste.
Thank you for visiting today!
Tami

I am an affiliate with Simon Says Stamp and Scrapbook.com so the links below send you to one of those stores depending on which logo you choose.  If you wish to purchase something from either store and use one of my links below, I get a small percentage of your order, at no additional cost to you. This helps me to defray the costs of this blog and the ideas and tutorials I post here, and your help is greatly appreciated! Thank you!