Eileen Hull

Three dimensional art... with heart

Blog County Fair

This is so much fun! Fellow designers Vicki O’Dell and Laura Bray decided to get a linky party going showing a bunch of projects that you might see at a county fair. Click on the Blog County Fair blinkie in the sidebar for more info.

I decided to enter a three layer cake. Doesn’t every fair have a cake competition? Don’t drool too much- it’s a little dry… it is made out of matboard! I told my friend Lorine my dream job would be making cakes like this every day. Each one is different and the scrapbooking and paper craft supplies are perfect embellishments for the cake base. You can use them for all kinds of celebrations.

Sooooo…. here is my entry to the fair. I used beads, texture paste, air dry clay and dimensional paint to simulate icing and cake decor. Is it a prize winner? That would be up to the judges… Thanks for stopping by!

Creative Connection

Have I mentioned that I am heading out to the Creative Connection this week? This is the second year it will be held and basically it’s a gathering of women entrepreneurs who have found a way to market what they are passionate about and will be sharing how that has worked for them. I am so excited for many reasons:

  • have never been to Minnesota
  • a road trip is always fun
  • seeing my great designer friends
  • classes with Charlotte Lyons and Cathe Holden– learning from the masters!
  • reading on the plane, no cooking
  • meeting new people and hearing about what they do
  • hope to get lots of blogging tips
This week was crazed as I had many items on my plate to finish- my next Sizzix collection for CHAS 12, coordinating the upcoming Fresh Vintage blog hop (starting September 27!), making prototypes for my annual 1800 holiday AAUW card order, samples for another large invitation order and mailing two large boxes to the military posts I supply with product. When it rains, it pours… Speaking of rain, I also had major cleanup as my studio had 2 floods in the middle of this! Sheesh. Enough already! Yes another reason I am looking forward to the trip this week 🙂
One little side note… I just got an email blast from Oh My Crafts and they have the Sizzix Fresh Vintage Flower Layers #9 on sale for $7.88! If you have been considering buying it, get it now- that’s less than wholesale! Just click on the picture of it and you will be at the Oh My Crafts site where you can make the purchase- they make it so easy.

 

Hope you all have a great week and sunny skies! If you are also headed to Minneapolis for the conference, let me know and maybe we can meet up?

Designer Connection hop

Happy Labor Day to all! That just sounds wrong, doesn’t it? “Happy” and “labor” do not belong in the same sentence if you ask me 🙂

Today is the monthly round of fun- make sure to visit all of the blogs where you see the little blue icon like I have on my sidebar. We are a group of (mostly) CHA designers who post projects the first Monday of the month. Many of these designers will be joining me later in the month to show their take on my Sizzix Fresh Vintage dies. See the post below for more info.

Usually we select a common topic to post about and the one for today was Baby. I just happen to have a baby project that I created 8 years ago and sold to a magazine. After it was returned, I put it in the Home for Retired Projects and forgot about it. But I did think about it just this weekend because Kelly, my niece and the subject of this project, came for a visit. She is turning 8 years old this week. I thought it would be fun to give her this little album I made her. The pictures in the book were taken on Christmas while we were at the hospital after Hayward’s mom had her second stroke. She never recovered from it and died a few days later. We are not looking our best but that’s life…

The cover is made of pink matboard and I daubed some stencil paste over a brass stencil for the shoes and then inked over them in white. I did add some twine (from The Twinery!) and Stickles for a little update. I think she will be excited to get this and hope she knows how much we love her.

Off to work on my next set of dies for Sizzix. It is Labor Day after all, even though that is more fun than work 🙂 See you soon…
I know I have not been posting much lately, but occasionally I have to take a break to get some stuff done so I have more to show you! Lots coming soon- thanks for stopping by…

Sizzix Fresh Vintage Blog Hop

COMING SOON ————————>
Another fun and idea filled Sizzix blog hop begins on September 27!

Every Tuesday and Thursday for 6 weeks, we’ll be featuring one of my twelve Fresh Vintage dies: a collection of three dimensional flowers and signature ScoreBoard dies, including a bird, butterfly, suitcase, album, vase and caddy. ScoreBoards are unique to Sizzix and specially designed to cut and score matboard and thicker materials. Fresh Vintage dies were created to be used with recycled and vintage materials, fabric, fleece, felt, packaging materials, old patterns, ledger sheets, tissue paper and coffee filters. And of course, paper 🙂 I just can’t wait to see what the designers come up with!

In addition to your favorite designers from past hops, we’ll be joined by supporting manufacturers and their talented design teams, showing how well their products enhance and are used to embellish the dies.

12 dies…
6 weeks…

prepare to be
inspired, amazed, blown away and asking yourself,
“How did they ever THINK of that?”
See you soon!

Tag Box

My daughter had to have emergency surgery last week (she’s fine… and luckily the appendix is not a vital organ). But in my worried state I needed to keep my hands busy so I decided to make her some gift card tag folders. One thing led to another and next thing I knew, I was making a box to hold the tags. It was one of those nights…

I bought some Grafix Rub-Onz film probably a year ago and decided it was high time to use it. I laid a nameplate out in Illustrator using the Duetica Piper font. Duetica is a cool on-line lettering system that you can subscribe to. The software allows you to test out many versions of each letter so you can customize the word or phrase to look just how you want it. When we were working on Jess’s wedding invitations, this was one of the fonts that she liked so I used it here. The red, white and blue color theme reflects her job- she’s a LTJG in the Coast Guard.

You will need:

access to Duetica fonts
Sizzix Big Shot die cut machine
ScoreBoard Notebook Pocket die (on sale for $15.99!)
3 sheets of 6″ x 13″ matboard
red half pearls
ribbon
3 tags- 6 1/4″ x 3 1/8″
kraft paper
embossing folders (I’ve used one of my brand new sets coming out in December)
Distress ink pad- Lipstick
stencil brush

Box:

  1. Cut out three Notebook Pocket dies from the red, white and blue matboard pieces in the Big Shot machine. Assemble each box.
  2. Lay out a background design in your photo-editing software. Import the text you have selected from the Duetica site and insert in the design. 
  3. Following directions, print label (or desired graphic) on Rub Onz film. You will have to print in mirror image mode for designs with text.
  4. Rub image onto box! It worked- so cool!
  5. Stack three boxes together. Run a line of double sided tape down the back of the ribbon, then wrap around the bottom of the stack of boxes, keeping them even. Wrap a strip of kraft paper around the top and tape in place.
  6. Sew a paper ruffle on your sewing machine. Crumple and adhere to the kraft paper strip.
  7. Slip a paper handle down each side and fold up. Adhere to strip. Cover strip with adhesive backed ribbon
  8. Add adhesive pearls to finish off!

Tags:

  1. Emboss bottom of tag using Textured Impressions borders. Score at 1 3/4″ from bottom.
  2. Run thin line of double sided tape down both sides of the shorter flap. Fold up to make a pocket.
  3. Rub ink over embossed sentiment with stencil brush.
  4. Add ribbon to top of tag.
  5. Insert gift card tag in each box.

Write your message on the back of the folder, insert your gift card and present it to your neighbor and thank them for picking your paper up while you have been away on vacation, for your babysitter, caregiver or teacher. These are so handy! Make a bunch of them to give as gifts or to use yourself.

Feel better Jess! Love you…

Frame Banner

Life has been crazy here at my place. Apparently, even when your kids grow up, move out, get married, have kids, etc., you still worry about them…sheesh! So there’s been lots going on here, most of it good 🙂

I did have a chance to make a project for my friend Sandy whose birthday will be celebrated this week. I made a banner to hang over her chair in the restaurant. Sandy is so interesting… she grew up on a farm and has been collecting skulls for a while. Yes, real animal skulls which are displayed in her basement! See why I hang with her? This is a super fun group folks…

As you may know, I have been doing some videos for Oh My Crafts, an internet scrapbook store. They have some really great sales there- you should check it out and get on their mailing list because some of the prices are amazing. For example, they have my Sizzix ScoreBoard Frame, Easel die which normally sells for $39.99 on sale for $9.59! I highly recommend getting one while they are still in stock. Sizzix has discontinued them 🙁

I did a video showing how to use this frame die to create a birthday banner

and a mini-album
This frame holds the wallet photos that are sent home in school picture packages. How easy to cut out a quick frame, let your kids decorate it with markers, paint or crayons and then put it in an A-2 envelope and mail off to the grandparents! Major points…
Some exciting news coming soon, my friends! Get ready…