Eileen Hull

Three dimensional art... with heart

Designer Connection blog hop

Our theme for the Designer Connection June blog hop is “Patriotic”. And I can’t think of anyone more patriotic than military wives and moms!

To see more of the red white and blue, hop on over to my fellow designers’ blogs by clicking on the blue Designer Crafts Connection button on the sidebar. You will be taken around a fabulous hop. Make sure you find the blog with the great giveaway! Keep hopping 🙂

I started designing matted artwork about 20 years ago. Traditionally, in the army, a small gift (usually bearing some reference to the military or unit) is given to welcome a new spouse to the family support group. Items like this were hard to find so my good friend Kim and I started designing military wife pieces for this purpose and later expanded into baby items and everyday sayings, as well as creating custom farewell gifts, volunteer appreciation and other gifts for the commanders on post. I am happy to say these pieces continue to sell well for me on line, at craft shows and in military post gift shops and boutiques. I am happy to help support the units with donations to many worthy causes such as scholarships and organizations helping the military community. I loved our time in the military and am proud that our children have also chosen to serve.

This is a small sampling of some of the military wife specialty gifts I create and sell. If you are interested, see more on my website.

Happy Memorial Day!

Sending out a huge thank you to all who have served in the military. Having visited other countries, I sure appreciate living here and the freedoms we enjoy. The military life is not an easy one, but one I feel blessed to be part of because of all of the amazing people we met and still have as friends. You guys are my heroes (especially the one I married and two I gave birth to). Go Army and Coast Guard!

Here’s a Patriotic Banner I designed for the Buttons Galore and More blog. Hop on over to see how to make it.

Enjoy your day off. We’re celebrating with a cookout and some relaxing. It’s supposed to be 97 degrees… time for the AC.

A Glass Act

Just back from a trip to New Orleans… and boy is that place HOT! But also very cool. Because while I was there I took a class in glass blowing. This is something that always fascinated me but I never thought I’d have the opportunity to actually try it out. New Orleans Glassworks was right around the corner from our hotel so I went over to check it out and, after some deliberation, scheduled a two hour private class with a teacher. I was given a quick tour of the studio and advised to wear close toed shoes and sunglasses.

I arrived at 10 AM and it was already about 90 degrees. I met my instructor Drake. To be honest, he did most of the work… but I did pick the colors 🙂 The first thing we (he) did was use this long steel stick called a “punty” to gather the molten glass from the 2200 degree oven. (I’m sure you can understand why I was overjoyed that he took this job upon himself.) The punty always has to be twirling so that the melted glass doesn’t get off center and fall off. So that was lesson one… not too hard. Turns out I am a pretty good twirler. When you take it out of the oven, that’s when it’s the hottest so if you are going to add color, it happens then. I was allowed to pick from a bunch of Dixie cups holding crushed glass and larger chunks in all different colors. We rolled the hot glass in the “sprinkles” of color (all the while twirling away) and then shaped it into a smooth round knob using a cherry wood “block” which looked something like a ladle with one side off. The block had to be wet often so that the glass didn’t burn it- you could see sparks starting if it got dry.  After that was formed, another gather of glass was added on top of the first one. In order to keep the glass hot, there was another oven called the “Glory Hole” where you would “flash” the glass to heat it back to a workable temperature.

The first project I made was a paperweight which I think came out pretty cool. I never really got to see it because once you finish the piece, it has to go right into another oven where it is annealed. This oven slowly brings the temperature, starting at 900 degrees over a period of hours, down to room temp. If it is cooled too quickly, the glass will crack and be ruined.

The second piece we did started as a vase but kind of morphed into more of a bowl and actually involved blowing glass. I think I was most nervous of this and thought somehow I might inhale scorching air into my lungs and die. But luckily, it really was not possible to do that. I was surprised- the first bit of blowing took the most effort because the glass was relatively thick but once it thinned out, less pressure was required and it got easier.

I was especially interested in how the piece came off the punty. One of the last things you do when finishing a pieces is to take calipers (which look something like a large pair of tweezers) and score a line (twirling twirling) where you want to cut off your glass. Then you simply dip the calipers in water and press the point of them into the thinner (and weaker) scored area in 6-8 spots around the base of the piece. It is then placed it in the annealing oven over one of the shelves and given a couple of sharp whacks and off it falls! Then the oven door is quickly closed so the heat stays in.

Drake was drenched by the time we were finished and I was not much dryer even though I was not near the ovens half as much as he was. This NY girl was ready for a Big Gulp! I was very happy to hop on the streetcar after class and and cool down.

I am so glad I took this class. I now have some idea of the things that can be done with glass. I appreciate the talent and dedication of glass artists and would love to do more but it really takes some major equipment so doubt I’ll be switching careers. Also it’s just too hot for me. But I love it and can’t wait to see my five little glass babies when they arrive in the mail after they have safely cooled down. I encourage you to think about taking a class here and there- it’s super inspiring!

My trip to the National Stationery Show

Home at last! The past week has been a blur as we traveled to Longwood University to see our youngest daughter graduate from college on Saturday. Then it was a long dark rainy drive to NY to bring my parents back home and an early morning wake up call Monday morning to catch the train in to “The City”, as we referred to it growing up. Come on- is there really any other?

We arrived at the show right as it opened. I saw and talked to a LOT of people, one of them being Tim Holtz, fellow Sizzix designer and all-around cool dude, who graciously agreed to talk about his new product line in a video clip. I’ll be sharing this on a Craft Critique post so I’ll let you know when that’s going up. I also got to visit with Ken Oliver from UniBind– one of the most entertaining and talented designers I know. Stay tuned for more looks at what’s hot!

Duetica Design Team

I mentioned a while ago that I was working with a new company called Duetica. Well, today is the first posting of the Duetica Design Team! I am so excited to see what everyone has come up with and hope you can check out all of the fun projects. Here are links to the other team members:

Becky Conley
Candice Windham
Christy Monge
Eileen Hull
Kathy Peterson
Kristie Taylor
Niki Meiners
Rebecca Lynn
Suzanne Sergi
Veronica Goff

Duetica, a cool new on-line lettering art studio, gives you lots of options for customizing your text. Using the lettering system, you are able to view a bunch of different options for each letter and select the exact version you want so that your finished piece looks hand written. I used one of my favorite fonts for the wedding invitations and stationery pieces- the graceful Mandolyn. I printed the bride and groom’s names larger and in a different color so they really stand out and then used an everyday font for the rest of the information. I don’t like to mix more than two or three fonts on one page as I feel it can be distracting. Thank you cards, favors and the program were also created using this combination of fonts and colors to keep the suite consistent.

 

Is anyone else around here a font geek? It’s sometimes hard to find an alphabet where you like every letter or symbol. With Duetica’s many font options, I was able to select my favorite ampersand! I enlarged it and reduced the opacity. It serves as a cool background and also draws attention to the two names and ties them together. There are so many subtle ways that fonts add impact to our artwork.

Here is a small favor tin using two capital Mandolyn “J”s- (one is reversed and together the J’s form the base of the cakestand). It’s so much fun to see what kinds of word art you can make using fonts!

The CD favor that everyone got was composed of songs that were played for the first dance at the weddings of their parents and grandparents, friends that have gotten married and songs that were special to them. We cut the envelopes from 8 ½ x 11 cardstock, scored them to size, embossed the envelope flap, slipped the CD in and added a label with song list.

Jess and I both saw these hearts in a Martha Stewart Wedding magazine and commented on how cute they were. She decided she wanted to use them as her seating cards. Here’s how to make them: (thanks Martha!)

 

You will need:

Cardstock- we used 5 shades of blue
Silver and black fine tip markers
Die cut or heart shape punch (I used my Sizzix eclips machine)
Glue pen or thin double sided tape
Scissors

Instructions:

  1. Cut as many hearts as you need and some extra to allow for mistakes. The size we went with was about 2 ¾” across.
  2. Cut a slit from the bottom point up toward the middle of the heart
  3. Cross one piece of the split heart over to the other side. Adhere in place. Trim unwanted sides off so heart shape is clean. Remember to make it large enough to accommodate your guests’ names in a readable size. The surface of the heart is tricky to write on as it is 3D but just keep it flat as you write.

A vintage window with decoupaged book pages served as a seating chart display. We ran 3 lines of double stick tape with my handy dandy 3M ATG gun down each pane, then stuck the hearts on in alphabetical order, so it would be easy for the guests to find their names. Many thanks to my niece Katrina, who made this look so pretty. The flowers were made from my new Sizzix Fresh Vintage dies using crepe paper, tissue paper and some foil.

A birdcage that I had found years ago in a thrift store was called into service to house the cards given to the newlyweds. Originally a natural wood, it was spray painted white and topped with a blue and white bow. I cut some of the bamboo spokes off the top of it to allow a slot for the cards to be dropped in.

I have been collecting silver plate for quite a while and had a good number of silver bowls on hand. We decided to fill these with hydrangeas and other spring flowers for the centerpieces.

Here’s me with my son Chris right before we walked up the aisle 🙂

And here’s the happy couple heading into the reception. Love her blue shoes. What a fun day it was…

Happy Birthday magazine

Just a quick post to let you know that Amy Powers’ Happy Birthday magazine is published and available for download. I am totally impressed by her talent. She put a 245 page idea book together in just a two months and every turn of the page is a delight! I saw her previous “Spring” issue on Facebook and thought it sounded cool so I followed the link, paid my $3.30 and downloaded it. What a treat- talk about eye candy!

Loved the look of it so much, I decided to see if I could submit something for her next issue and contacted Amy. In the course of our conversation, I discovered that she actually lives right down the road from me! We are going to get together at some point and meet in person.

I promise you will not regret getting this magazine- it is so worth it! Follow the link above and let me know what you think… And don’t forget to check out pp. 186-191- you might know that designer 🙂 What is your favorite project? What was your favorite birthday memory?