Halloween Skeleton Mini Tag Album in Treat Box

Okay, this one is a bit macabre for me, but it's a hostess / thank you gift for a Halloween party (Michelle, if you somehow get to my blog, don't look!).  We've never really done Halloween, but my youngest dresses up every day of the week, so Halloween just kind of started happening in our house once he was old enough to catch on . . .

This is a mini tag album (I only embellished the front of the tag album and the front of the treat box), but for dark and weird, it's kind of "cute" if you will. 

I started by using one of 4 treat boxes from a package I bought at the local 99 cent store.  I inked it up with Ranger distress inks and alcohol inks (it's a glossy surface so the alcohol inks blend with the distress inks and make them stick better).  I took a piece of scrap paper and tucked it inside the box before I unfolded it and traced around the top part of it to make a template.  I then cut some textured card stock and lined the inside of the "lid" portion (see the last picture below to catch a glimpse of the lining to see what I mean).

I then took five regular, manilla shipping tags from the office supply store and cropped about 1/4 inch off the bottom because they wouldn't fit in the box (even diagonally) without cropping them.  I covered the tags (front and back) with paper from the Recollections Halloween paper pad.  Next step of course was to "dirty" them up with distress inks (Ranger inks - Walnut, Vintage Photo and Black Soot).  I then used plain white hole reinforcers from the office supply store that I inked up to give the holes a finished look.  I used a common, shiny, silver bookbinding ring that I colored with a black permanent marker and then "mucked up" with some gold paint to give it a vintage, dirty look.  So when I got that far I wasn't sure where I wanted to take it.  Here's what I was staring at . . .

At this point, for my front (cover) tag I added a torn piece of paper (the glitter chandeliers from tag #2) and some lace that I glimmer misted and inked with Ranger Black Soot and pleated onto the tag with a glue gun.  I also cut a small piece of the diamond patterned paper and added it on to the side.  I die cut a jack-o-lantern and dirtied it up really well because the orange I used was too bright.  So as I'm looking at it, I liked the box, I liked the paper, but I didn't like the jack-o-lantern. So I scrapped the jack-o-lantern altogether and ended up with this:

What I ended up doing was adding a Tim Holtz flourish I cut with my Sizzix die cut.  I made it look vintage using a heated, bubbled paint technique I took from Luvleescrappin on youtube.  Then I added some skeleton bone beads across the center of my lace.  The skeleton and beads I found at the 99 cent store (I know, Luckeeeee).  The skeleton was the pendant on a Halloween necklace and the bones were the actual necklace (they were 2 to a pack - even luckeeeeeeier).  I just cut them apart.  The skeleton was too big for my tag so I ripped his legs off (look, he was dead already so cut me some slack).  Then I remember the "spider web" stuff I also got at the 99 cent store and just went to town with it on the front of my tag.  Of course you can't have spider web without a spider; soooooo I stole one of the plastic spider rings I bought for my son's class goodie bags (check back for a tutorial on those later this month), cut the ring off, glittered with stickles and Martha Stewart black glitter (I looove that glitter).  I tucked it in the webbing and added glue underneath. I finished it off with a red bow tie for my skeleton and  . . . Ta - da! 

The Box:  

The box didn't look finished enough just inked up, so I used Glossy Accents on one side on all the bone pieces.  I then used my craft knife to cut out the window and put spider webbing inside and stretching across window.  I decided to make use of the "extra" legs by adding them as a border around the door, filling in with the loose bones from the necklace.  There was a skull at the top of the door, so of course I had to cut a small hole and wedge in a skull bead to finish off the door.  The box was finished off by adding some spider webbing to the front (adhering with a few mini glue dots to hold it on)  That was it for the box, a little more spider web inside to nestle the tag book in and voila!