Thursday, October 31, 2019

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

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3 comments:

scrappergirl56 said...

WOWZERS!!! Such an awesome project all put together....thanks for the fab tutorial...Happy Halloween!

Claudia N. said...

One of the best Halloween projects I've seen...ever!!!! Love love love how you've arranged all the yummy Halloween parts - an absolute delight!!! I had almost managed to get one of the idea-ology packs with the gorgeous owl but sadly mail delivery service messed up so the parcel went back to where it came from and the replacement parcel I got re-sent by the lovely shop owner had a replacement for this particular bit in it as it was sold out by that time...still makes me somehow sad when I see the owl - but of course your project is just so heavenly cool and beautiful - so it is a delight to see the owl being put to such great use!!! ;)

Thanks for this amazing inspiration!!!! Will remember that piece for a long long time!

Greetings from Vienna, Austria!
Claudia xxx

ann barnes said...

Tami, I totally appreciate the project starting way back in Summer with the purchase of the pumpkin. It is seriously amazing! I’ve loved each tutorial along the way and seeing it all come together is just incredible! What a super source of inspiration for me! Thank you for sharing your incredible creativity! xx