In 2020 Tim Holtz started his so-called Colorize series of dies with Sizzix. These Colorize dies are meant for you to add layers of color to your diecut image, each layer being its own color.

It was quite the ingenious system, for each set of die parts comes with its own color code. For example, everything with code “1” should be dark brown, each “2” should be blue etc., helping you as a maker to put together the elaborately layered die-cut image designs.

I think the very first one of these was Arthur, the purple owl.

I have thus far crafted one owl-on-a-branch project, and I gave it my own twist of course: instead of using differently colored pieces of cardstock, I sprayed my own backgrounds on mixed media heavy stock and die-cut my pieces from those.

I actually made this project two years ago, in August 2020, but I just now realized I had never actually shared it on my blog! So, here we go, with a step-by-step semi-tutorial on how I made my card with Arthur, the purple marbled pink owl.

1. Made the building blocks: created enough inked/sprayed/painted backgrounds for the project, in the colors I wanted.

2. Embossed a wood pattern on the bark-colored one.

3. Die-cut the branches – which now also had some nice texture, thanks to the embossing.

4. Die-cut the owl pieces from the other papers, and sorted them according to the Sizzix color-coding. Although I made my own colors, the coding still helped me to know which pieces belonged together.

5. Chose some chipboard sentiment pieces and colored them.

6. Made a card background. It started as an abstract piece but then it became a moonlit landscape of sorts.

7. Following Sizzix’ color-coding, I glued each layer of the owl image to the background. Sizzix also has very clear video tutorial shorts on Youtube for each of their Colorize dies btw. I’ll embed the one for Arthur below these pictures.

8. Glued the piece to a black background, added the chipboard sentiment pieces and applied some liquid pearl along the edges.

Done!

I have to say it was a fun project, and the detail these dies provide by way of the ever-smaller layers is very cleverly designed. Look at those tiny claw pieces!

So yeah, I’ll have me some more of these Colorize dies by Tim Holtz for Sizzix and see what fun they’ll bring!

What about you, have you tried any of the Colorize die sets? Leave a comment and let me know!