Happy Halloween! I'm so excited to share this spooky vignette full of Tim Holtz goodies!

The story behind this make is that a devious botanist lives in a forest with a garden full of dark and poisonous plants. His home is full of tisanes, preserved plants and dusty tomes on botany. Standing guard is his pet raven, who can escape from his busted birdcage to pluck out a stranger's eyes if needed!

I started out by selecting the coffin vignette but I wanted to stand it in a way that was a little different. So I opted to place it on it's side. Next I chose some of the Halloween backdrops , cutting it to fit inside and around the outside of the project. 

I then distressed the edged and used my Stitch Happy sewing machine to add stitching around all of the backdrops before glueing them in with collage medium and 1/4" adhesive. 

I then began working on the bits and pieces that would go inside the vignette box. I painted the caps of the toadstools with candied apple Distress Paint. Once that was dry, I grunged it up with Distress Crayon in walnut stain, wetting it to get it to spread into any nooks and crannies. I then used a white impasto paint to add little dots of white to the caps. 

I then worked on creating some books using the mini books from the ephemera pack. I cut paper to fit inside, inked the inside of the covers with various colorful Distress Oxides, inked the edges of the pages with Distress Oxide in gathered twigs and then glued them to the spine with collage medium. 

For the open book, I made the pages twice as wide, inked all of the pages with tea dye Distress Ink, stamped some script text from the Entomology stamp set on front and back of the pages, misted the pages, splattered them with a bit of color mist, dried them and then scored them down the middle. 

For the pages that the book is open to, I added a few remnant rubs as well. I folded the pages in half, stacked them so the pages I would open it to were in the center and then glued them in to the spine with collage medium. Once it was dry, I opened it and mussed up the pages a bit and added a tiny clip. 

For the tisanes, I chose a tiny vial and corked vial. I wanted one to "close" with a bubble so chose the right size as well, then added crazing collage medium to the surface of both bottles. Once they were dry, I colored over them with a bit of Distress Crayon in walnut stain, wet them and rubbed the crayon into the cracks a bit more. I then filled them with some purple and orange crystals from Pinkfresh. I chose some teeny tiny tables from the curator ephemera pack (one with botany on the label) and glued them to the front of the vials with collage medium.

Next I worked on the birdcage, cutting out a tiny raven from the Regions Beyond die set. I cut it twice, cutting with the kraft side of the black cardstock up so I could glue it back to back. I then glued him to a small bone with collage medium. 

I used some needle nosed pliers to mess up a birdcage a bit and then added some silver thread around each side of the bone to hang the raven from inside the cage. I pulled the thread up and through the top hole and then tied it off. I added a few bits of crumpled paper into the bottom of the cage. 

This botanist needed a plant inside his home so I cut out a leaf branch from the Funky Floral set #2. I cut it twice, so I could glue it back to back. I used some shaping tools to add some dimension to the leaves, cut off a bit of the excess stem and then glued it to the cork part of a corked dome with a little dot of hot glue. I then chose a tiny label with the name of a flower shoot on it and glued it onto the glass with collage medium. 

I used one of my resin twig casts to add a little to the outside of this vignette, painting it was black gesso. I then painted over that with Distress Paint in walnut stain, misted it and let it dry. Then I added a little bit of white wax over it to highlight the texture. I also chose one of the spider charms and added two dots of red on the body to turn it into a black widow. I strung it on to some white thread to hang it from the box later. 

I then assembled everything inside the box, using hot glue, heavy body gel and collage medium. I added a couple of bones and a drippy candle on a candle stand. I glued the birdcage to the top edge with a dab of hot glue and the spider from the thread with collage medium. I added moss around the toadstools and then glued the resin branch down. I added a butterfly and some stickers. 

But I decided I wasn't quite done yet. I cut out the layers of Mr. Bones that gave me the hands, glued the layers together and then cut the arms off and added them around the toadstools like someone was popping up out of a long forgotten grave. 

I hope that you enjoyed this fun little vignette and that you have a wonderful Halloween! Until next time, happy crafting!

Adrienne

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