Eileen Hull

Phewww…

6 Mar

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!

Almost done!

29 Feb

For the past few weeks, I have been working on designing my next set of dies for Sizzix scheduled to be released in January 2013. Today I was taking a break and thought it would be interesting to see if there were any posts from Stitches, a trade show held in the UK for the craft industry similar to CHA. I looked on the Sizzix UK blog and found this picture of my Sweet Treats collection! Isn’t it cute? I need to write to Paula Pascual and thank her for designing such a cool display.

It’s interesting to see how the US and UK Sizzix Art Departments have decorated the same basic dies for two completely differently looks. I love them both- but I might be biased…

Here are a couple of pictures taken by my buddy, Vicki O’Dell, the Creative Goddess. In addition to being a great photographer, Vicki is such an amazing all around crafter- she does it ALL- home decor, jewelry, paper, and her faux food is to die for! Plus she is a fun person to hang around with! Check out her blog post for more pictures from CHAW 2012.

I’ll be posting again when the artwork is delivered!

The Birds go to CHA!

23 Feb

Maybe this could be a series- where oh where will the Birds appear next?

Here’s a project that I created for the ImpressArt booth at CHA. I used their cool metal alphabets to make a recycled soda can mobile. Once again the Bird die came in handy, as did the ScoreBoard Butterfly. Both are from my Sizzix Fresh Vintage collection.

First I cut the shapes from soda cans- two butterflies and birds for each hanging piece. I also cut one matboard shape as a base for each. I hammered the metal stamped words on the silver side of each soda can shape. Then I took alcohol inks and the foam blender and dabbed the color on. Each one is different- some I filled with color, some were sparsely inked and some were in between. What unified the project was the color palette- my favorite blues, greens, purples and yellows.

To finish, I hot glued the soda can shapes to the center of the matboard bases but allowed the sides and wings to bow out giving nice dimension. Then I punched a very fine hole in the top of the shape for hanging and threaded fishing line through each one. I thought I would go insane tying these on- fishing line is very annoying to work with! But it was worth it- the birds and butterflies look almost like they are floating in midair. I also added some beads to separate strands of fishing line to counterbalance the weight.

Another discovery- photographing a mobile is no easy task! I wanted good light so I carefully took the whole piece outside and suspended it from a tree branch. Every time I would go to take a picture, the wind would blow and everything moved! So I have about 30 horrible blurred pictures of this cool mobile. Finally I had to admit defeat, pack it up and send without getting a decent photo… Oh well…

The hardest part of this project was figuring out how to make the hanger part of it. I tried three embroidery hoops tied together with ribbon, and then wired frames in three varying sizes together, but they were too overwhelming for the delicate hanging pieces. I wound up finding a baby mobile at a thrift store for $5. After removing the A-B-C’s and 1-2-3’s, I added my own pieces. Recycling at its best!

Do you have a bird or butterfly project you’ve made with these dies that you’d like to share? Send it on over to me (EileenHull@aol.com) and I will feature it here!

Is spring really on the way? Seems like it in VA…

The Bird goes to school…

21 Feb

You never know where a Sizzix die will show up next! I had a call from my friend Lorine asking if she could borrow my Bird die. Her friend Connie was working on a special project with her class. Here’s what Connie says:

The Great Backyard Bird Count is done across North America and sponsored by Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Audubon Society, and others. We had to observe, identify, and count for 15 min birds visiting the feeders outside each classroom. For the young ones, birds are a great class room activity, bringing the outside “in”.

The children ranged in age from 3 to 6. The three year old class did cardinals (simple color-red with black mask around an orange beak). With the four year old class I added to the cardinals white die cut birds (black capped chickadees), and buff die cut birds (house sparrow). For the kindergarteners I added grey for the tufted titmouse. For our kindergarten enrichment class we focused on house sparrows and used a dark brown base for their birds.

Normally the children would cut, color, and make each bird, but with only 15-25 min there wasn’t time for the children to do each step. Since the goal was identification and counting, the pre-cut birds, combined with photos of each species, allowed the children to pick out the distinguishing characteristics of each species. They used crayons and markers to decorate them. I’m enclosing photos of some of their “birds”. One class used clothes pins to perch their cardinals in the window and other classes made mobiles with theirs. All in all a wonderful craft to our observations. Thank you! Once again, the die cut birds were fabulous! Connie

P.S. They also fly very well. The kindergarten boys proved this!

How cool is that? Love the P.S. 🙂 Here are a few more pictures of the children’s finished artwork. ScoreBoard dies are specially designed to cut thick materials, like the chipboard used here, which is a great choice for kids because it’s so sturdy. And who knew that chipboard could fly?

What would you make with the Bird die? Come back for a look at another project using this little guy….

Crunch time

18 Feb

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!

LOVE using Metal Stamps

11 Feb

Since Valentine’s Day is coming up, I wanted to share a project I did for the ImpressArt booth at CHA. I used their awesome metal stamps to stamp into matboard- crazy, huh? But look at it! These stamps are so much fun…

According to Suzann Sladcik Wilson‘s CHA Jewelry Trends Report on Mixed Media and Cross Crafting, metal stamping will be hot for 2012, and not just for jewelry. I may be a little biased here but I think matboard is the perfect material to use with metal stamps. There is some give to it, but it’s also thick enough that the stamp does not go through it, as it could with lighter paper.

I will admit it takes a little practice to get the hang of metal stamping, but once you get going, it’s hard to stop. FYI, it’s best to do this in daytime hours as the banging gets the non-night owl people kind of cranky…

I used black pigment ink on my stamp before applying it to the matboard. I did this because it was going on a wall in the trade show booth and I wanted it to stand out. But the impression looks great even without ink. It’s subtle and has a letterpress look to it. Believe me, this is something you will want to try! So easy to make tags, title blocks and accents- then ink, distress, chalk, etc. I hope you will check out ImpressArt and give this craft a try!

Head over to the Tip Junkie to see lots of other fun Valentine ideas…

Also make sure to check out the FaveCrafts blog hop!