Eileen Hull

Three dimensional art... with heart

Recycled Pencil Can

First Monday means that we’re hopping with the Designer Connection! Click on the blue logo in the sidebar to see what all of the other designers have created for spring!

Thanks to all the designers who participated in our Sizzix Spring Linky and also to those who visited and left your kind comments. I will be contacting the winner today and getting that Fringed Flower die out in the mail! 

As I mentioned a couple of weeks ago, I have been getting into the recycling bag quite a bit lately. My husband deposits stuff and then I go dig it out. Today he came home with some solar lights for our driveway and I almost had a heart attack when I saw the plastic packaging it came in. You will see it in another form soon 🙂

So anyway, about the project… it’s simple, easy and inexpensive to make. That’s sure to be a winner, don’t you think? 

Here’s how:

  1. Assemble materials- soup can, string, Big Shot die-cut machine, Flowers, Layers #9 die, wool felt, large girls’s headband elastic, 2″ piece of pipe cleaner, mismatched earring, glue gun
  2. Clean out soup can. If you have one of those Pampered Chef can openers that roll the lid instead of leaving jaggedy edges, make sure to use it. Unfortunately I do not have one and proceeded to rip my finger open. 
  3. Dab a tiny bit of glue along the bottom edge of the can and place the end of the string over it anchoring it to the can. Wrap string around the entire can. Keep pushing down on the string so all areas of the can are covered. Dab another dot of glue at the top of the can to anchor the end of the string. (I thought the effect of the string on top of the ridges in the can was really cool. The thicker your yarn or wrapping material, the less you will notice the bumps though)
  4. Die cut two flowers from felt. Layer them in size order. Find a pierced earring in your jewelry box that you don’t want. Stick the post through all of the layers of the flower. Put earring back on behind the flower. 
  5. Double wrap the headband around the can and use the pipe cleaner piece to secure the headband to the earring. 
  6. Fill can with pencils and place on your desk for a fun touch of spring!

I’d also encourage you to stop by the ScrapScene blog today and take a look at the WIP Monday where you’ll see some inspiring Works in Progress!


Thanks for stopping by today.
Tip Junkie handmade projects

All Things Altered Blog Hop

Pam Bray has coordinated a fun blog hop with some crafty friends! Our challenge was to create an altered project. Please hop through all of these sites- if you leave a comment you will be entered for a chance to win the grand prize.

Here are the participating designers! Can’t wait to see what everyone has done 🙂
Pam
Pinky
Nicole
Betty
Debbie
Christine
Jess B.
Charity
Laura Evangeline
Eileen – you are here!
Jennifer
Irit
Gloria
Cindi

I mulled many ideas over in my head but decided to alter an item I love to collect- cigar boxes! I found this one I had already spray painted and used years ago at CHA to hold some rack cards and little piece of foamboard candy that I made for giveaways. But honestly, it had seen better days. The die I wanted to use was my Sizzix ScoreBoard Candy Drawer from the Sweet Treats collection (shipping in June). It’s one of my favorites- I love to make a bunch of them and stack them to hold all kinds of stuff. When I placed the drawers inside the cigar box, they fit perfectly! It was meant to be… I have been collecting buttons for a while and these work great to give some character to the piece and also function as drawer pulls!

 
 
Supplies:

cigar box
dictionary pages
Sizzix Candy Drawer by Eileen Hull
Sizzix Butterfly by Eileen Hull
Sizzix Mat Board Pack (6 sheets 6″ x 13″)
Sizzix Big Shot die cut machine
brown dye ink
cool buttons
kraft knife
spray adhesive
ATG gun
glue gun
old drawer handle

 
 

  1. Cut lid off cigar box with knife and ink edges of box to distress.
  2. Coat matboard sheets with spray adhesive and lay dictionary pages on top.
  3. Run matboard through Big Shot  and die cut six candy drawers.
  4. Ink edges of drawers and box fronts in brown.
  5. Pick 6 coordinating buttons and cut off shanks. Glue a small button in the middle of the drawer and glue the larger one on top. (it needs to stick out a little for you to grab the button to open the drawer).
  6. Tape all outer boxes together to make one piece. This is not necessary but it does make it easier if all of the drawers are stuck together to pull them out each time. If you ever wanted to re-use the drawers somewhere else, just tear the paper off and paint it, stencil, whatever…
  7. Glue handle to cigar box. (oops- I meant to glue this handle on top! However, now I can put my business cards on top of it and grab it from the side so easily- it’s better this way after all)
  8. Load up your drawers with fun goodies you want to keep close at hand.
  9. At the last minute I decided to add a butterfly because it just seemed kind of plain. See this post and video tutorial if you want to know how to make the butterfly using recycled soda cans. 

This project will stand right next to my computer to hold office supplies that I use often like sticky notes, memory cards, paper clips, binder clips, stamps and brads. I really like how this came out and it’s useful too!


I am also posting this project over at ScrapScene for WIP Monday (Works in Progress). So you subscribe to ScrapScene? You will love it! It’s a great source of info- lists DT calls, shows pretty projects, new products, artist’s studios, etc.


I will be giving away a Triangle Box ScoreBoard to a lucky winner who comments here too so please make sure you let me know you were here! So glad you could stop by… have a great weekend!

A Night in the Studio

Last night, although there were a million other things I should have been doing- taxes for one :-(- I started playing around with some packing tape that I had found a while ago in the dollar section at Michael’s. It works great for taping up boxes, but the patterns and colors were so pretty I thought there might be a crafty use for it too. And it turns out- yes, of course there is! Keep an eye out for these fun ideas coming soon…

I like to have a bunch of projects going on at one time. Can you tell :-)? Usually there is something that has to dry, or I’m waiting for the glue gun to heat up so I just start in on another project. Anyone else out there do that? 
While catching up on Project Runway All Stars, I die-cut 75 Cake Slices for a Make and Take at The Collins Group event this weekend. Here are more samples of what will be taught at the Sizzix blog. Special note- my good friend Karen Burniston will be demoing her new line of dies called Pop’n Cuts. They are so cool- it’s a system that Karen designed to make creating pop-up cards easy, quick and super-impressive!

Here’s the project that I designed for the event. It has been interesting working within these parameters:

  1. showcase the product 
  2. 10 minute assembly 
  3. successfully completed by all skill levels 
  4. looks amazing
  5. is quickly and easily taught
It took a little thought but turned out to be a piece of cake! (get it?)

On to finish the next thing… stay tuned!

Spring Bouquet in Recycled Glass

The glass jars in my recycling bin keep finding their way down to my studio. I am trying to slowly reorganize and glass containers are great because I can see what’s in them and also they’re free! But kind of boring…

Here’s what I did with a larger jar. It had no lid- I don’t know where this came from. I thought it was a good size for a vase. All I did was add a 12″ piece of pretty packing tape around the circumference of the jar. I thought about adding ribbon but then I won’t be able to send it through the dishwasher. So this is how it will stay!
The only flowers I have blooming right now are daffodils but there aren’t that many (in fact I just went out to pick some and saw that my zealous husband had just mowed them in a fit of spring fever! I will not repeat what I may have said. Don’t worry- he didn’t hear because he had returned to the mowing). So I picked the few remaining daffodils and some pretty forsythia and greens. 

 

I used the lid of a to-go cup from Subway to support the stems (daffodils are so floppy!). Using a Crop-a-dile and awl, I punched some holes to stick the stems in and there you have it- a pretty spring bouquet!

Phewww…

Did you just hear a big sigh of relief? The dies for CHAW 13 have been sent! Designing the dies is the fun part- it’s the hours of drawing them in Illustrator that gets me crazy. The good news is my skills are definitely improving. The bad news is I feel like I am permanently attached to my computer chair. Now to catch up on everything else…

Remember the birds from a couple of weeks ago? They have appeared again, spotted on the blog of Madeline Arendt! Visit her blog to hear how she made it. She made the sweetest mobile for a baby shower gift using the birds and tree branches. Madeline has posted so many beautiful projects on our Sizzix blog hops and I am a huge fan of her work. She always uses interesting materials and finishes every project with just that special touch. Here are some pics I grabbed from her blog- hope she doesn’t mind me sharing…
Sadly I was not able to make a project this weekend because today is our Designer Crafts Connection Blog Hop. 🙁 You can follow that to see some cool spring projects.  Just click on the blue button on the sidebar for some great inspiration. I have a fun project to do for an event tomorrow night and promise to take pictures and post them.
In other news, I had a lovely email from a lady who I was chatting with on Karen Burniston‘s Facebook page 🙂 Her name is Leslie and here are a couple pictures of an adorable Halloween project she made using my Box with Scallop Flap ScoreBoard die.

This is what she said:
Here are a couple of pictures of my treat boxes made with your Box w/Scallop Flap Die.  I  made a belly band and fabric yo-yo with googly eyes to close the box.  They were filled with mini M&M peanut packages, my grandson’s favourite candy at the time. 🙂
Love this- thanks so much for sending that to me Leslie! I love the look on the little yoyo’s face- all nervous that the spider is going to get him 🙂
Now on to the stack of work… wish me luck! 

Crunch time

First of all, Happy Birthday to my youngest daughter Maryanne! Have to run out to get a cake mix for the traditional yellow cake and blue buttercream icing… 
It’s so much fun to be able to make a card using dies that I designed! The flower was die cut from a sheet of pretty pink gingham tissue paper and the leaves I cut from this cool grocery bag type fabric found at JoAnn’s which I have not been able to find again and am kicking myself that I didn’t get more. 
Blessings, love and hope for a great year to my beautiful daughter!
This week I have been hard at work in my studio brainstorming and drawing die designs for 2013. It’s hard to imagine working that far out but it takes a long time for the finished product to be designed, tested, produced and on the shelf.
I also received a box of sample dies that will come out at the CHA Summer 12 show. Thankfully they all work- I am always nervous that they won’t, even though I test them several times before sending the artwork.

I’ll be back blogging more often once these dies are finished and on their way! Hope you all have a nice long weekend!