Ghastly Graveyard - Halloween Ideaology 2019

 Here is the entire graveyard! If you have all of the inside grave parts already made, the pumpkin holder goes fairly quickly.

 I bought this paper mache pumpkin from JoAnn's this summer for this project, so it has been in progress for a long time. I wanted to covere it with the 2019 Halloween Collage paper.

 Because I wanted to put my graveyard in it. I needed to cut a window in the front.  I was kind of pleasantly surprised as an educator that the inside of the pumpkin was made of layers of recycled school work book pages. Nice!
I painted the inside of the pumpkin with one layer of Black Soot Distress Paint.

 Once the window was cut, I cut the collage paper into strips in between the poison labels and then attached the strips to the pumpkin all around the middle section.  Do this by putting a layer of Distress Collage Medium in a small section where one paper strip will go, and then put the collage paper over it and press it onto the pumpkin. Then lightly go over the top of it with a layer of Collage Medium. When that was done, I went back and filled in on the top and bottom of the pumpkin.

I decided to cover the leaves that came with the pumpkin and adhered them to the collage paper  on one side with Collage Medium.

 I trimmed the leaves out and did the same on the other side.

 Next, spray the leaves with a dark green Distress Oxide Spray, like Peeled Paint or Forest Moss, and let it dry.

 Spray the pumpkin with an Orange Distress Oxide Spray like Spiced Marmalade. and let it dry.

 Here is what it will look like as it dries.

 I wanted a deeper orange so I added some Carved Pumpkin in a few places.

 Using a damp wetwipe or cloth, gently wipe away the Spray Oxide on the leaves and...

...on the pumpkin. There will be some oxidized parts in the nooks and crannies and that is perfect, exactly what we want.

 We need some green vines and curly-ques. I bought this Grapevine Wire at Hobby Lobby in the floral section.

 Using a poking tool, make a hole large enough to be able the thread the grapevine wire through.

 Thread the wire through the top. Please note below that the inside was Black but I decided to spray the inside of the pumpkin with  Chipped Sapphire Distress Oxide to soften the black into a night sky.

I pulled a large amount through and then twisted several smaller pieces onto it to form branches and a thicker tree trunk. Then I glued it into place with a hot glue gun.

 To add the Twinkle Lights that you see in the photo above, I colored some Mummy cloth with Chipped Sapphire Distress Oxide Spray.

 I grabbed a set of Twinkle Lights and then once the Mummy cloth was dry I needed to adhere it to the wire.

 I wrapped it around the wire and secured it to the wire with hot glue every few inches.

 Next poke a hole large enough to be able to easily thread the mummy wrapped Twinkle Light wire through the hole. The referring to the photo  with the tree trunk, I turned on the lights and carefully adhered the thick wire nearest the hole with no lights on it to be adhered to the back of the tree trunk and then I glued the string of lights around the inside "roof" or ""sky" of the pumpkin.

 I attached some of the grapevaine wire to the top of the pumpkin and curled it into a vine tendril, and then attached the leaves as well. They weren't as dark green as I wanted so along the edges and the vein, I added some Forest Mosst Distress Crayon and rubbed it in.

All around the opening of the pumpkin, I scribbled some Black Soot Distress Crayon and rubbed it in.

 I really love the orange coloration the Distress Oxide gave to the Collage Paper. So vintage and antiqued looking!

 To the top of the opening I attached the long bat from the Halloween Adornments.

 Now comes the fun part. You get to arrange the Graveyard. I started by lining the bottom with some Spanish Moss that you can get in the floral dept of any hobby store.

 Then I added the pirate mausoleum with some hot glue. I positioned it to the right of the tree trunk and slightly toward the back of the pumpkin.

 I added some aged bones that I just tossed into the fenced area.

 To fill in the hole between the mausoleum and the wall, I did the thing where I make a dead plant out of the Broomstick by getting it wet and the scrunching it up. When it is dry, glue it back in the empty space.
Then glue an aged tombstone in front of the dead plant and the mausoleum. have it lean back or be a little cattywampus.

 In the center, in front of the tree trunk, I arranged three items.

I added the owl monument from the tutorial I posted just before this one.

 Then add an aged tombstone and the bat monument. If you look closely you can see that among the moss I have some fall leaves scattered around.

 On the left side of the pumpkin, start in the back by installing the large double mausoleum slightly behind the tree trunk.

 Add another one of the Broomstick aka dead plant things on the far left side of it against the wall of the pumpkin. Next to it add the Salvedged Doll monument and oile some skulls between the monument and the base of the tree trunk. Break a tombstone in half and add one more whole tombstone and the broken pieces in two different places.

 Here you can see how the edge of the mausoleum is behind the branch and trunk of the tree and skulls and leaves are at the base of it.

 You can see the lights above everything on the top of the pumpkin that give a bit of a glow from above the graveyard.

 and here are the lights on the otherside.

Making a graveyard in a pumpkin is a great way to express yourself by getting as realistic or as scary as you want. I obviously went for a more realistic, old cemetery feel since I really love those.
Thank you so much for stopping by, thank you so much for taking the time to read this and a huge thank you to those who take time to leave a comment. I read every comment and so appreciate the support.
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!

Graveyard Vignette Box Mausoleums Idea-ology

Along with the graveyard monuments in my last post, I made some graveyard mausoleums using vignette boxes. Getting these pieces to look appropriately aged isn't as difficult as you may think.

To start off with you need a set of Vignette Boxes and the Halloween Layers and Baseboards. You need the two smallest boxes and the baseboard frame that look like the one above.

The frame is obviously larger than the bigger of the two boxes. I cut it down to fit my box by cutting some off the top, bottom and center so that I had a window with the cool corners but also so it fit on the box.

Here you can see where I had measured the box and figured out how much to cut off the top, middle and bottom.  When this is done you can toss the parts with the X through it and keep the two pieces that are left.

Once they are cut, when you sandwich them together it should end up looking something like this. You can fiddle with it until it looks the way you want.

Before you attach the baseboard frame pieces to the box, you need to get gritty. Attach the mini brickwork stencil THS038. Using a palette knife, spread a thin layer through the bricks. Lift the stencil off and you have a brick wall.

Do the same application to the entire outside of the small box. When they re dryish, spray them all over with several colors of  Distress Oxide Spray. I used Forest Moss, Black Soot and any brown but I think I used Ground Espresso. I sprayed it all over the boxes, covering all the sides and bottom. Let dry.
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            

On the Crypt Cameos and the Skull and Cross Bones, I put some of the Grit Paste on my finger and just tapped it onto them. Then I sprayed them with the same Distress Oxide Sprays as well. I did this process to a few tombstones as well. NOT pictured is the Metal Fence. It got the same treatment as everything else. Grit Paste and then Distress Oxide Sprays.

Mine ended up really pickling the wood on the boxes and then turning the grit paste a cool grey with green and brown bits thrown in. This is cool and I could have stopped here but I wanted to go one step further.

As you can see from this photo, on the smaller box, I added a curved frame.  You have to do this carefully. Bend a little move, bend a little move, bend a little, keep doing this until you get it bent enough that you could attach it to both sides of the box.

I wanted to add a bit more color, so I scribbled some Distress Crayons in Peeled Paint, and any brown you might have on hand. once it is scribble where you want, then rub it in the space

This close up show the Grit Paste with the Distress Crayonn colors on the top.

More of the mossy effect from the Distress Crayon in Peeled Paint.

And here it is in place in the graveyard.

I adhered the Baseboard Frame onto the box once the brick work was dry.Then I tapped some Grit Paste onto it all around the edges. Let it dry and added more color with Distress Crayons.

Here you can see all that luscious texture!

This shows the detail of the Grit Paste and Distress Crayons.

My next post will address the entire graveyard holder and then how to pull it all together.
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!