MR. SINISTER HALLOWEEN FRAME

Hi everyone!  Welcome to my first Halloween tutorial of this year!  I couldn't wait to start creating once my new Halloween goodies arrived.  As soon as I saw this Tim Holtz Sinister Bigz die, I knew I needed to have this one.  The skull is in three pieces.

I had created a shadow box earlier this year using one of the large Collage Frames (TH93711) and a vignette box and loved the idea of having room behind the frame to create a 3D vignette.

How can you not love this flocked paper from the new Halloween Paper Stash(TH93712)!  I covered the front of my frame with this. Sand and ink the edges.

I wanted my skull to be a little thicker, so I cut out two from Sizzix's Little Sizzles Mat Board.  This is an alternative to chipboard, it is light weight and cuts beautifully!  I cut out another skull from Distress Watercolor Cardstock.  This was lightly coloured with Distress Oxide inks.

Once all my pieces were adhered together, I applied clear Distress Embossing Ink all over the top, then embossed with clear embossing powder.  I did this twice to get a thicker coat of embossing on top to get a deeper impression from my stamp.

For the third layer of embossing, I wanted a more aged look so I used Vintage Beeswax Baked Texture embossing powder, but another coat of the clear will work too. Apply the distress ink, then your power.  Before heating, have your rubber stamp (only red rubber used for this as clear acrylic stamps would melt) ready as you have to work quickly.  My stamp is from Tim Holtz Entomology Set (CMS328).  As soon as your powder has melted all over, press your stamp into the piece while it is still warm. Lift after you have your impression.  If you're not happy with the impression, just reheat and try again!

This is how it will look.  I liked the small writing on this stamp, and usually choose a small pattern when doing this technique.  It's really just for the texture, so I'm not worried about it being perfect.  I also find that a finer embossing powder works better, the stamp impression will show up better.

To grunge it up a bit more and the stamped impression to show up more, apply Distress Crayons. Add a bit of water and wipe off the excess, leaving the colour mostly in the recessed areas.

I didn't press my stamp into the teeth, it's a small piece and I thought it would stand out more being plain.  Put this aside and work on the frame next.

This amazing Tim Holtz Sizzix Thinlits die is called Tangled Twigs.  Look at the detail! There is no cutting edge around the outside, so you can leave as much as you want, I did about 3/8". I die-cut this from black cardstock.  I also die-cut one from a piece of flocked or velvet cardstock which was backed with an adhesive sheet before cutting out. I left about 1/8 inch edge on this one.  I had this piece from a long time ago and loved that velvety look like the flocked pattern paper.  Because this is an intricate thinlits die, it wouldn't have cut through the two layers, so this is why I cut two separate pieces.  I carefully pulled the adhesive off one edge of my velvet piece and lined it up with the cardstock, pulling away the backing as I lined it up.  Because the skull is resting on the twig cutout, this velvet layer gave it more strength and it couldn't tear.  Something to consider when deciding what material you want to use.  Now that I think of it, Tim Holtz Substrate sheets would work really well.

I folded the edges underneath to fit inside the vignette box, which was covered with patterned paper first.  The die-cut was adhered about halfway down.

Cover the outside with patterned paper (Tim Holtz Halloween 2017 Paper Stash).

Adhere the frame to the box with Distress Collage Medium. Once that dried, I determined where my skull was going to sit, and clipped a few of the twigs behind the eye socket so they could come over the top of the skull.  I die-cut a small section of the twig die from a velvet piece to go over top of the left side of the skull.

Adhere the skull pieces to the edge of the frame and the branches behind.  I used black foam adhesive squares to the back of the bottom skull pieces so they were higher on the one side.

  

Color some Tim Holtz Baubles (TH93759) with Alcohol Ink.  I used Pebble, Mushroom and Pitch Black.  I used larger ones on the bottom as you can't see them, the box is slightly lower than the frame opening.  I adhered one inside the one eye and started out adhering the larger ones.  I used collage medium or a strong clear liquid glue.  Wait until these first ones are dry before adding in the smaller ones, so they all don't fall off from the weight.

To complete my Sinister Frame, I adhered two metal pieces from the Halloween Vignette Accents pkg. (TH93730).  These were both aged with Distress Paint.  A small pearl brad was adhered to the center of the bottom piece.  The words 'the silence' was from the Halloween Clippings Stickers (TH93719).  

Well, that's all I have today, hope you enjoyed this tutorial!  I can't wait to get started on my next project...actually I have a few on the go. 

Thanks so much for stopping by, 

until next time,

Jan