Haunted Asylum

Hello, my dear ghouls and goblins!   I used to never decorate for Halloween and now I’m crazy about adding little spooky bits around my house – and I don’t have to dust because it just adds to the decor!!!   Today, I’m also a guest designer at She’s a Sassy Lady.   Sheila has a great set of Designers on her blog, so take the time to see what all is being created there. 
Anyhow, onto my project today.    I created the mansion from Happy Hauntings.  I love how easy ProvoCraft has made many of these projects.   Their directions are very easy to follow and still allow you the freedom to add your own flair.   I’m sharing this not only at She’s a Sassy Lady, but also entering it at Bitten by the Bug 2!  I was so excited that they extended the deadline because I was saving this post for my Sassy Lady guest spot!!!  Now, I can do both.  I won’t bog down your reading time with all the details that you can find in your cartridge handbook such as how to score and assemble the pieces, but I’ll show you how I personalized mine and hopefully give you a few new ideas to spring from.

I started by looking at the different cuts and directions that would be needed to complete the house and made notes in my handbook.  (yes, you can write in your handbook – I give you permission)  I wrote down the coordinating direction’s step# next to each cut image and even labeled what color I wanted to print (in pencil in case I change my mind on color in the future).    I decided I wanted a big house, so I would need to use my 12×24 mat and my ProvoCraft 12×24 black and white paper.   I used white for the house and black for all roof and trim pieces.  A yellow 12×24 paper by K& Co was utilized to create my inside window cuts.

I then started with the first 3DHouseA cut and sized this on my Gypsy to fit the 12×24 mat.  I created a different tabbed page for my cuts and labeled the tabs with coordinating color and cut # so that I could easily keep track of my pieces and cuts needed.   If you want to use my .gypsy file, you can find a link to download this at the bottom of this post on my blog.  I kept everything in proportion to my first 3DHouseA cut and continued to copy/paste to a new page all the cuts to this house, making sure to delete the ones not needed (those I copied from) when copying to the next page.  Notice on my screen shots above how I titled the tabbed pages.  Also, PLEASE remember to hide your preview by clicking on the eye icon or you’ll get lost in your house real quick.  I ran out of my 12×24 black before it was all done, but I was able to adjust a few of the cuts so that they could fit on 2 12×12 pieces of black cardstock.   This will not work for the larger pieces at this size.  Nevertheless, you can always resize it to fit your paper.  

Once I had all my cuts organized on my Gypsy, I connected it to my Expression and started cutting all the pieces.    They were all very easy to organize once removed from the mats except for the yellow window pieces.   You might want to lightly label these with pencil before removing from your mat because it was very much like putting a puzzle together trying to figure out those pieces once I just took them off my mat and put them in a pile. 

I knew that I didn’t want my mansion actually white, but a dingy old house look.  Once my pieces were cut out, I began misting them with various colors of Glimmer Mist.  I used a fine mist of Vanilla Breeze over the entire cut followed by little spurts in places of Latte, Creme de Chocolat, Midnight Blue, Olive Vine and finally Graphite. You could use any variety of colors you wanted and less or more.  I also sprayed all my black cuts with Graphite.  The pink background is my large Tattered Angels misting mat.  I pull this one out when working on a large project or multiple pages.  Again, I misted more than sprayed and did not oversaturate any of my pieces.  Therefore, they dried quite quickly.   I did use my heat gun to help dry a few of these.   I even flipped a few over and applied a little burst of heat to straighten them out a little more.  Some edges did slightly curl up, but I think this gave even more to the dilapidated appearance of my mansion.

After misting each cut piece, I gathered my Distress Inks and inked most edges and windows with some Brushed Corduroy and some Black Soot.  This really gave my edges and windows some character.  I really added the Black Soot to the inside and outside of the chimney.   Here is a closer picture of a window and some edges after assembly so that you can better see the contrast.  

I wanted to cover my windows with Martha Stewart’s glow-in-the-dark glitter.  I found out after trying it on one piece, that the yellow was not showing up so well.   That’s OK, after adding some Distress Mustard color to the pieces, they were really yellow.  I then ran all the window pieces in upside down through my Xyron so that the sticky was on the front, and then covered with the glitter.  The one place I messed up was by using such thick paper for my windows – my little battery flickers do not show through the windows.   They still show through the open doors, though, so it all worked out.  

Once everything was colored, inked, glittered, and dried, I began assembling the house.  I scored along all score marks provided on the cuts.  This is one time I used the score marks provided and did not hide them on my Gypsy.  I am SOOOOO glad that I did not hide them.  I then followed the directions in the cartridge Handbook for putting all the pieces together.  I mostly used Score Tape for my house.   There were a few places I used my Helmar’s 451 glue because I found that a liquid was easier in a few places.  Some of these were with the windows being glued to the inside and part of the roof where the two different roof lines meet.  

The big scary house was not all that scary once I created my game plan and made the notes in my handbook.   Once I had all my pieces cut out, it came together rather quickly.  Putting the roof on was the hardest part and might take an extra helping hand if you have one around.    It’s definitely something to show off once created.  

I still want to make some more pieces for my sofa table centerpiece, but for now it’s coming together.  I still have my haunted house from last year and some of elements from there.  We hope to make the spooky tree and some more decorations to go around the houses.  

 I did find one more cool – or rather hot – addition today for my house.   Did you know that Martha Stewart now has black hot glue?   I loaded the gun and let it heat.