How to Create a Mini Graveyard with the Tim Holtz Sizzix 2024 Vault Halloween Die Sets

It's officially spooky season and Tim Holtz recently released his 2024 Halloween Vault collection with Sizzix! In this tutorial, I show you how to create a mini spooky cemetery with these dies and some Idea-ology products. 

Hey, crafty friends! I'm so happy that the "official unofficial" start to spooky season is here! On July 5th, I'm ready to throw my summer decor out and put up Halloween decor, by I've got my niece's birthday to throw later this month, so playing with spooky season products in my craft room will have to placate "Goth Adrienne's" heart for the time being. (Speaking of products, I dug quite a bit out of my stash for the Idea-ology elements, but I bet you have many of these items stowed away as well. But I have linked what I can below, including the latest Tim Holtz Sizzix dies I used, since that is what this project is all about!)

And now that it is "Augtober" (that's a cross between August and October for my friends who are translating into another language), many crafty companies are putting out their latest spooky season products! Up first for my Halloween creations this year, is the Tim Holtz Sizzix Halloween collection. Tim brought back some of the most beloved and requested dies back for this Vault collection and as soon as I received my Sizzix DT box, I fell in love with the coffin box die! 

As soon as I saw it, it was like a lightening bolt hit me and I immediately saw this spooky cemetery scene in a vignette box in my head. 

I won't go through the full tutorial here because I've got a two part video series up on my YouTube channel that takes you though creating this vignette step-by-step, including how I turn the coffin box into a little "hinged" coffin. But I will talk about some of the key points of what I did.

I used three of the Halloween themed vault dies to create this little vignette. The coffin box is the main star of the show, but I've also got a little potion bottle and a nighttime graveyard scene replete with bats and a silhouette of tombstones.

I also included tiny lights in this vignette for maximum spook factor. I feel like every creepy cemetery needs some unnerving green light. It's really cool the way it hits the moss I added. 

But I feel no Tim Holtz Halloween themed vignette is complete without some amazing Idea-ology pieces. I have a ton (and I mean a ton) of these things ferreted away and every day in my craft room I look at my bins with them and think longingly of using what I've bought. 

I'm super thankful to be on the Sizzix design team and that they had some samples still available to send my way. It gave me an excuse to use up a bit of Idea-ology pieces! 

I'm embarrassed to say that I still have some of those tiny jars of Halloween themed texture pastes from Tim and Ranger. Luckily for me this is the first time I've cracked these open (is that even more embarrassing?) and they weren't dried up. 

I used the crazing and grave pastes. But if you no longer have these, I recommend any clear crackle paste to replacing the crazing paste (Prima has a clear crackle paste), and any gritty texture paste with a brown or green paint to replace the grave paste (like Scrapbook.com's Cloud Whip or Prima's Graphite or Sand pastes). My goal is to use these little pots up so I don't waste them. 

Anywho! I also recently saw on the Tim Holtz Addicts Facebook group that Michelle Wolters shared a fun technique using Ranger's Ultra Thick Embossing Enamel (UTEE) on acetate to create seedy old glass windows. I just had to try it out with this project, and it works absolutely amazing. So thank you, Michelle! I created a fun glass backing to my Cathedral Window Thickboard that became the gate to this spooky cemetery vignette. 

So those are some of the main points that I wanted to hit on this fun and creepy vignette box. I hope that you love it and that it inspires you to pair your Tim Holtz Sizzix dies with Idea-ology elements and art mediums to create your own spooky mixed media scenes this year. Until next time, happy crafting!

Adrienne

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Below are products that I used for this project.