The Haunted Mansion – Tim Holtz Village Die Set for Halloween

Happy Halloween! Lisa Hoel here and I have one last project for the season to share with you. It's been awhile since I created village scene in a lantern so I made this one as a birthday gift for some friends of ours.

I based the design on the Disney Haunted Mansion book/ride. (Our friends are classic Disney fans.)

The house itself is loosely based on the illustration in the book:

Last fall Tim Holtz released an 87 piece Thinlits die set, Christmas Village, that was based on his wildly popular (and retired) steel rule Village die collection. This new set has much more flexibility with mix and match doors, windows, additions etc. so you can cobble together your own versions of mini houses. Check out Tim's excellent video where he explains his thoughts on this set and all the ins and outs. (More on how I constructed my mansion below.)

The background is alcohol ink on a large sheet of translucent Yupo.

The mansion grounds are filled with gravestones, ghosts and the frightened caretaker.

I scanned and printed pages from the book to fussy cut out the figures.

Of course there are also Halloween Tiny Lights as part of the scene.

The vignette on the top of the lantern echoes details from the story (and a delightfully detailed Idea-ology Tombstone).

Arthur the owl and the Mischievous cats are stars.

Let's take a look at some of the how-to:

1) First off the bat was making the house. I cut the pieces out of Kraft Heavystock paper and inked them with Distress Oxide Pumice Stone and Hickory Smoke ink. I stacked the sides to make a multi-story structure.

2) The background is a large piece of Yupo paper I alcohol inked as a night sky. (You can get large sheets of Yupo at art stores. Ranger sells smaller sheets of Yupo cardstock packs that are perfect for card making etc. I also used the Moon Masks set to mask the moon while making the background and then adding the moon shadow details on the face of it.

3)  To add the tiny lights, I left a hole in the base of the house and hot glued several loops of lights onto the landscape platform. I then ran the wire with the rest of the lights around the front and tacked it into position with hot glue. I disguised the wire with paint and placed the bulbs behind bushes and gravestones.

4) The gravestones were die cut out of heavy cardstock coated with grit paste and painted. I used the Halloween 2022 Remant Rubs to add details.

5) The structure the top vignette is built on is an Etcetera Trims piece I hot glued onto the lantern.

Thanks for stopping by and Happy Halloween!! Time to pivot to Christmas LOL.

Supplies used:

Tim Holtz die set - Christmas Village

Tim Holtz die set - Mischievous

Tim Holtz die set - Vault Series Halloween 2021 #665563

Tim Holtz die set - Decorative Trims

Tim Holtz die set - Ghost Town #2 #665560

Tim Holtz die set - Arthur, Colorize #664730

Tim Holtz die - Branches #663138

Tim Holtz 3D Embossing Folder - Lumber

Tim Holtz 3D Embossing Folder - Mini Brickwork

Tim Holtz 3D Embossing Folder - Mini Cobblestone

Tim Holtz Layering Mask Set - Moon Masks

Ranger Kraft Heavystock paper

Ranger Archival Inks - Hickory Smoke
Distress Oxide Ink - Pumice Stone, Hickory Smoke

Distress Collage Medium Matte

Distress Grit Paste - Crypt

Distress Texture paste, Opaque

Idea-ology Remnant Rubs Halloween 2022

Idea-ology Tombstones

Stampers Anonymous Etcetera Trims, Bracket