Eileen Hull

Three dimensional art... with heart

CHA Wrap Up

Hi everyone! Remember the Sizzix Triple Play blog hop that we had right before the holidays last year? Well, it was so much fun that we decided to keep the group going. If you click on the Designer Connection logo on the sidebar, it will take you around the ring of participating designers. Such fun! Our first event is today and if you hop around to each blog, you will see each of our CHA wrap ups. 

In addition, there’s an amazing prize being offered to a lucky person- a Cricut Expression! There is a treasure hunt to find 9 Cricut logos sprinkled throughout the hop. If you find them all, you can be entered to win. For details on the treasure hunt visit Julie McGuffee’s blog to get more info- she explains how it works.

On to CHA… I hardly got to walk the show because I had a booth in License & Design and spent most of my time there. On the last day when it was slow downstairs, I did run up and take a look. Here’s what I saw:

  • pennants and banners
  • rosettes
  • lots of vintage
  • retro kitchen
  • text
  • crossover- sewing and food related crafts
  • masks and mists
  • flowers flowers flowers!

I guess the most exciting thing for me at this show was to see my Sizzix Power Panel up  in the booth! It’s called Fresh Vintage and features my signature ScoreBoard dies as well as a several varieties of 3D flowers. My thought in designing this collection was to use unexpected and recycled materials like old sewing patterns, tissue paper, coffee filters, old sheet music, ledger sheets, crepe paper, etc to cut the dies from.  

My favorite thing about being at CHA is the chance to meet and reconnect with all of my amazingly talented designer buddies! What I love about the group is how everyone supports and encourages each other. I think we are all grateful to have found a group of people who “get” us. I am already looking forward to the next show. See you there!

New ScoreBoard Vase Die a la Jonathan Fong

Jonathan Fong is an author, lifestyle expert and on air personality and also happens to be a friend of mine. We met about years ago at CHA. He was promoting his new book Flowers that Wow and was sporting a pair of pants with about 2000 tiny pictures of flowers on them. Of course we could not let him pass by our booth without getting the story on the pants! What a fun guy- we had a great visit. A few months later, he was in town for a speaking engagement at the Expo Center here in VA so we met up and had a little time to get to know each other and have been in touch ever since. He did a very cool project making Guest Towel Cupcakes for an Oprah audition video and inspired me to make some using my ScoreBoard cupcake holders which you can see in my blog post here. Anyway, when Jonathan found out I would be in town for CHA, he invited me to be a guest on his weekly web TV show, Style with a Smile. We had a great time making it and I’ll be sure to let you know when it airs. Many thanks to our production assistant, Lorine Mason!

I left him with one of my new ScoreBoard dies and got a note from him tonight along with this picture.

“Look, I made a vase using your fabulous die. It was for a friend who is in the musical “The Adding Machine.” So I made flowers out of the logo and put the logo on the matboard and cut the die. It looks so cool, thanks Eileen!”

Is that creative or what? Love it- thanks Jonathan!

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CHA

Back from CHA

I just watched the Cool2Craft webcast from CHA and wow- it appears there was a lot that I missed! I spent a most of my time in my booth where I met with manufacturers and art directors from the gift and stationery industry. I hope to convert some of my design work in the craft industry over to another line of products. If things work out I should be busy for a while. We stayed in a very interesting old hotel called the Figueroa. From what I understand, it used to be a YMCA- the decor was eclectic and interesting, if not the most up to date… but the price was right… and the other good thing was that it was really close to the Convention Center so we were able to walk in every morning.

There were lots of events and classes going on. Due to the snow, I missed the panel on Product Development I was supposed to sit on, but I did make it to the other events. The Designer Round Tables went really well and had great attendance. Our Sizzix class was lots of fun and I think the folks that took it enjoyed getting a glimpse of what is coming in the next few months. I liked meeting everyone a lot.

I also had the opportunity of meeting a bunch of Cool2Craft viewers who were there visiting the show (hi Hermy!) plus had a couple of minutes to hang out with my friends Lisa Fulmer, Andrea Currie, Ann Butler, Eco Heidi, Linda Peterson and Tiffany Windsor.

The Sizzix booth was just beautiful as always- many thanks to Deena Ziegler who created the Fresh Vintage project samples that appeared in the booth. They are out of this world. Deena has posted some pics of the booth- take a look at her blog. Here’s a shot of me in the booth. Isn’t this a cool logo the Art Department came up with?

I will tell you some more about a webisode we filmed next time! Have a great weekend everyone 🙂

CHA Sneak Peek #4

OK so I am kind of bummed right now as DC got slammed with a bad snowstorm last night. I got a text from Southwest saying that my flight at 9:05 today was cancelled. But my friend Lorine and I decided to go early (5:30 for a 7:00 flight) and hope to get out standby anyway. Unfortunately, when you do that, your luggage goes even if you don’t. So after spending 6 hours in the airport and not moving up the list at all, we came back home to regroup.

Luckily we do have a reservation for 12:40 tomorrow but I will miss sitting on a panel discussion called, Take it to Market which I was really looking forward to. Then I am supposed to moderate a discussion on Blog Hop Marketing for the Round Table Discussions and last is a Sizzix Triple Play class where I was going to teach a fun project from my new line of dies, Fresh Vintage, at 7. Might still make that one and am crossing my fingers.

So, here’s another sneak peek just for listening to my *sad story! This is the XL Caddy die- there’s so much you can do with this… I used it for a little notepad holder. The flowers are part of the die too and I colored them with Copic markers- such fun!

So *sad… I am sitting in front of the fire and just had a nice nap after being up all last night. Time for my dinner- Subway tuna on wheat. Life is not all that bad 🙂

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CHA

CHA Sneak Peek #3

This is a quick post because I am in the last phases of printing posters, packing and deciding what shoes to bring put in my CHA suitcase 🙂 But here’s a sample of the butterfly die that will be coming out as part of the Fresh Vintage collection. I am excited about this die because it’s a mini- ScoreBoard (Bigz size, not XL like all of the others have been) and comes with another set of cut out wings that are a cool overlay. I didn’t use the overlay here because the simplicity of the 20 layers from an old map book looked just right as it was. I curled the wing edges with a pen for movement. And there you have it my friends… much more will be coming later. Wish you all could be there at the show… See you as soon as I catch a breath!

CHA sneak peek #2

This week has been a blur. As I get ready for the big CHA (Craft and Hobby Association) Show starting next Saturday, I am feeling overwhelmed, excited and nervous. I am displaying my work in the License & Design Section. This is a place where artists and designers set up their work and hopefully attract the interest of manufacturers looking for the latest and greatest new thing. I don’t know why but it seems that all of my best ideas come to me at the last minute. Anyone else out there feeling my pain?

The one thing that I feel really good about is my new line of Sizzix dies that will be debuting at the show! The collection is called Fresh Vintage and the dies were designed to be used with paper and lots of other materials. I’m talking recycled cereal boxes, tissue paper, vinyl scraps, leather, fun foam, coffee filters, glitter chipboard, felt, fleece, bubble wrap, you name it. Here’s pic of one of the new ScoreBoards- a vintage suitcase that can be used to hold treasures, jewelry, a small gift or whatever you decide. The dies will be shipping in May.  Will try to post from the show!