Ghost Town - Tim Holtz Sizzix Chapter 3

This spooky little Ghost Town is a fabulous die set from Tim Holtz and Sizzix as part of the Chapter 3 release. I spent quite a bit of time trying to come up with a card idea worthy of its spookiness. Unfortunately I wasn't happy with anything I came up with on my own. Then I saw in my youtube notifications that Jennifer McGuire had posted a new card tutorial. So I headed over to see what kind of genius thing she had thought up and low and behold, her Split Card Design tutorial was just what I needed. I thought it would be just the thing to showcase these Ghost Town dies. I put a link to her video tutorial at the end of this post, but for now, let's go ahead and talk about how I applied her technique to this card.

Starting with the houses and trees, I wanted them to look old and weathered, so I did the following process on all the houses and trees that I used on this card.

I cut the trees and houses from a heavy black cardstock. Then I put a layer of clear Distress Crackle Paint.

Once it was dry it looked shiny and that wasn't the look I wanted. I could have used Distress Crayons on it at this point but I wanted to try something else.

I sprayed the crackle paint with Pumice Stone Distress Oxide Spray.

Then I rubbed it in with my finger to make sure it went down into the cracks.

I let it dry a little bit and then wiped off the excess.

As you can see it weathered the houses quickly and easily. If desired you can add some additional color with Peeled Paint and Walnut Stain Distress Oxide Sprays.

Now to make the card. For the Split Card you need to separate "split" sections either on the top and bottom or on both of the sides.

 This card has a split top and a bottom. The split pieces are not to connect together by themselves. The die cuts are what connects them. You need two pieces to make the top and two for the bottom.

To make the top of the split, I cut two pieces. One of them will need to be longer as it will be scored 1/2"-1" to be folded under the inside of the card. Jennifer McGuire will explain this in her video tutorial. She had dies that cut some cloud shapes for the upper part of her cards.

I didn't have that but I did have some fantastic bat dies from the new Bat Crazy set. I figured out that if I used the inside of the bat wings that I could make some crazy looking clouds with them. The two different types of bat wings make two different styles of clouds.

 I attached the shorter piece of cloud paper at the fold where the longer piece that had been scored.

Then I had to cut the bottom part of the split, so I used the longer bat wing to make some abstract looking hills.

Again I cut a longer and a shorter piece so there are layers. They need to line up at the bottom.

Here is how I positioned the bat wing to cut one side of the hills, then I moved it to the other wing and other side for a second cut.

Once I got them cut, I adhered them together and then did some messy sewing across the bottom

You have to attach the splits together, so to start, you have to put the scored piece on the top split behind the inside of the card. 

 Since you are going to be seeing the inside of the card through the split, I tried to make it look like the night sky. It is black smooth cardstock that has been sprayed with several colors of Distress Oxide Sprays in Peacock Feathers and Wilted Violet, with a little bit of Picket Fence Distress Spray Stain thrown in.

I added a few smaller bats from the Bat Crazy set, and cut the sentiment out of the new Handmade steel rule alphabet. I made sure the sentiment was behind the upper and lower splits. I only wanted the night sky and the bats to show through behind the ghost town.

To put this together, you attach the flap at the top of the cloud portion of the split, behind the top of the night sky piece. Then attach the entire night sky/inside piece to a piece that will be the very back of the card. This hides the flap at the top and gives the card a little strength.
Lay the bottom split even with the bottom of the card, hold it in place with something, and then use the pieces of the ghost town to attach them together.

Only put glue on the back of the houses where they will touch the top and bottom of the card split.You do not want any adhesive on the back of the card  that is in the split because you don't want it to stick. You want it to open.

Use foam dots to give the bottom house a little dimension.

Once this is all dry, flip the card open and cut all of the die cuts again and adhere them to the back of any of the die cut pieces. Line these all up and adhere them to the back of the split pieces and to the house.

Here is the video I watched from Jennifer McGuire on Split Card Design that gave me the inspiration to figure out how to make this work with these Chapter 3 dies. Once you see this video, my instructions above will hopefully make a lot more sense.
 Thank you Jennifer for always sharing your creative genius! I loved this card idea so much that I made several split cards with the dies from this release.

Thanks to my readers for making it this far. I hope you give this split card design a try. It's fun and a little addicting once you get the basic design format mastered.
Tami

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