The other day I received my shipment of the new Tim Holtz Stampers Anonymous Etcetera Thickboard Tag with Tombstone Overlay and got to work ……

Below you will find the step by step for making my tombstone ………

I am blessed to have a DIY hubby and while looking for something totally different awhile back, I came across this 5/8″ foam Backer Rod by MD that I new I would find a use for someday. Well, to my delight it was going to work perfectly on my tombstone 🙂 After following the visual directions on the tag packaging, I glued full diameter strips and some cut in half strips onto the tag, Distress Collage Medium worked great.

I knew I was going to use one of the pieces from the Tim Holtz (TH) Idea-ology Vignette Accents but wanted some more dimension in the top to make the metal embellishment stand out a little more. And wouldn’t you know it, the TH Sizzix Thinlits Stacked Archway #662692 was perfect. I used my Vagabond and cut 3 from recycled large heavy cardstock envelopes cutting about 2″ off the bottom. For the edges I used the negative part of the dies and placed in the corners, then sandwiched those with the top final archway so appear as one piece.

After cutting the foam right at the edge of the tag, I realized I wanted the foam to wrap around to the back, to fix this I used halved foam, glued edges and used masking tape to keep in place. As you can see horizontal pieces are full diameter and vertical pieces are halved.  I then painted everything with grey gesso by Bob Ross. I was going for a stone look and wanted black and white to play with highlights/shadows that is why I chose to use grey.

After that was completly dry I added Ranger Texture paste with a palette knife being sure to fill any gaps and to smooth out the cardboard top addition.

Let texture paste dry naturally then time to add Black Soot Distress Paint, applying full strength in crevices adding a little water to then let the paint do it’s magic.

For the name area of the tombstone I added a wood TH Vignette Frame but wanted it to appear as if it had been carved out of the stone. So to do this I added pieces of the recycled cardboard to the edge of the frame and to the edge of the tag thickboard, adhering it with tape.

For the name I used TH Alpha Parts – Signmaker and colored them with Alcohol Ink Gold Mixative, I also painted inside of cove and finger rubbed some onto the metal Vignette Accents.

To help with an aged stone look I sponged paint all over and then used my TH Splatter brush with Black Soot to appear as though there were little porous holes all over the stone. Corners and crevices needed to be re-darkened so I used a Stailo All pencil and activated with a wet brush.

That is all I have for the tombstone tutorial but will go into details with the close ups …

A few details added to the top portion of the tag was dripping some TH Distress Stain in Black Soot under the accent piece to appear as if eroding, along with some hobby scenic moss from the diorama hobby section.

For moss I also like to use collage medium and Distress Embossing Powder Peeled Paint (discontinued) in areas where I just want a hint of what appears to be moss. In some of the grooves/texture I also added Distress Stain in Peeled Paint for another variance of moss. I really love how the name turned out, that having it carved in the stone protected it from the elements, lol.

I also found out while using my heat tool to dry some of the paint, the foam did melt a tad, so be careful. This one column is a little wonky but I just thought it looked more like crumbling stone 🙂

 

For a final detail I thought about how tombstones seem to gather blown leaves but haven’t decided if this will be a wall hanging or displayed on a table so I opted for removable base. I made the leaves with a mix of TH Sizzix Bigz die Tattered Leaves #656927 and TH Stampers Anonymous Nature’s Wonder CMS343. Inked with a variety of Distress Inks and used Distress Marker Ground Espresso for linework on the Tattered Leaves dies.

There you have it 🙂 This was a really fun project and I hope I have inspired you to give it a try! Have a blessed day …

Wendy xo xo