Eileen Hull

Three dimensional art... with heart

New Arrival and Fourth of July

Life has been so much fun! Last week, my husband, two daughters and I drove our RV down to FL to be with my other daughter due with her first baby. My husband’s 92 year old stepdad Ray is living with us so my sister Marie, a nurse, had graciously agreed to come up to stay with him while we were gone. Unfortunately, the same day we left, a record breaking heat wave started in VA leaving Marie and Ray without power/AC for three days.  But Marie is amazing and has managed just fine (so far). I am so glad I bought the little pool before I left in case it got hot…


We arrived just in time. Our new grandson, Daniel Benjamin, arrived on July 2. He is just perfect and he wants to wish you all a Happy Fourth of July! 

In the midst of all of this, I am finishing up my art for Sizzix dies for next summer and getting ready for CHA. Life is good! 

Visitors and a quick tip

For the past week, I have had some clients and friends visiting from out of town. I loved seeing everyone- but it reminded me how lucky I am to work from home and not have to commute into DC every day!


A while back, I saw something on a video or blog about dying your own seam binding. I decided this would be handy because you could buy a package of white and then make whatever color you need. So I went into my JoAnn’s to buy some packaged seam binding to give it a whirl. To my surprise, JoAnn’s no longer carries it- there’s hem tape, quilt binding, piping, twill, etc. but not plain old seam binding! So I went on eBay and found a 100 yard roll of it for $8.50 and bought it. It arrived yesterday and I went to town. What fun and so easy!
All you need are some spray mists, a ZipLock bag, and the seam binding. 
  1. Cut seam binding to desired length and put it in the plastic bag. 
  2. Spray mist in the bag. How much you add depends on how dark or light you want your seam binding. It dried a little lighter. The first two I just added one color- the third one I got crazy and sprayed green first, then brown which toned down the green a little. The colors bleed into each other for a cool ombre effect.
  3. Hang seam binding somewhere to dry. (the shower rod works great)
  4. The crumpling process also adds a crinkly textured effect to the seam binding. If you want it smooth, you can use an old curling iron or straightener (instead of getting out the iron) to get the wrinkles out.
Tips: 
  • if the seam binding is totally saturated, blot with a rag and then hang to dry so prevent a big mess.
  • experiment with different dyes and inks. One color I used was Radiant Rain Key Lime from Luminarte and it had a nice shimmer to it. 
  • the seam binding is so inexpensive on the roll! Use it to wrap gifts, as accents on layouts and cards and for jewelry cording.
Next post will show what I did with the seam binding- and you might get a sneak peek of my CHA Summer release!

Vote for Jo Packham!

No, she is not running for President… yet… 

Is there anyone who has not heard of the incredibly talented and well- connected Jo Packham of Where Women Create, Chapelle Publishing, and The Creative Connection? I have had the honor and pleasure of spending some time with her recently and find her to be a delight- a humble and amazing woman with so much passion for what she does. This lady has done it ALL!

But wait- there’s more! Jo is now looking for help. She needs your vote to win a $250,000 grant from Chase. Would you please go vote for her here?


Where Women Create would love your support in our quest for the Mission: Small Business grant. Go to https://www.missionsmallbusiness.com/ click on “Log in and support” search for “Where Women Create Business” and click vote. We realize it is a number of steps and appreciate your help.

It only takes a minute- I just did it. 

I can’t think of a more deserving entrepreneur than Jo and look forward to seeing what she will do if she gets the grant! Please help her by casting your vote now so we can all find out what’s next! I can only imagine… the White House?

Duetica Baby Shower Layout

Last month we had a baby shower for my daughter Jess. She is due with her little guy at the end of June so we’ll be headed down to Miami. I can’t wait to meet him! And see my daughter and SIL of course 🙂

Here’s a layout I designed using the beautiful Mandolyn font by Duetica. I formatted the text in Illustrator and cut them out using my Sizzix eclips. Now, in addition to all of the fun  designs you can cut from eclips cartridges, there is a new feature called eCAL that allows you to cut files that you design yourself! Love it- and it’s really easy to do! Can you imagine cutting these delicate letters by hand? 

Supplies:
Duetica Mandolyn font (go sign up right now!)
computer
Sizzix eclips machine
Big Shot die cut machine
Borders & Hydrangeas Bigz die (shipping any day now!
white glossy 12″ x 12″ cardstock
photos and paper to mat them with
adhesive- glue pen and spray
scoring board
cardstock for words
scraps of paper for rick rack 

FYI- The background paper grid actually looks like bathroom tiles especially using the glossy paper…. My daughter looked at this and said, “Oh cool, I get it- baby SHOWER”. Yeah, I meant to do that. Really.

  1. Using Mandolyn font, lay out words on 12″ x 12″ paper, sizing them as large or small as you’d like. I love the graceful curves of this font and made my letters fairly large, about 2 3/4″ tall. The contrast of gray text on white is really crisp and not as harsh as black might have been.
  2. Assemble photos. Print and cut to desired size. Arrange on page. Mat with complimentary colors. I chose a light blue since blue tones were visible all through the photos. 
  3. Lay white paper on the scoring board and score every 1/2″ vertically on the wrong side of the paper, filling the page. Flip it over and rotate one quarter turn. Score every 1/2″ again.
  4. Add a border made from scraps trimmed from paper the words were cut from. Cut a few rick rack pieces from other colors in your layout and adhere them where there are gaps.
  5. Lay elements on page to arrange them and adhere in position. Use spray adhesive on the back of the “baby shower” pieces so they lay flat.
The theme we picked was “Welcome Sweet Pea” (realized this was not original as I shopped for plates and napkins) but I had a special reason for wanting it. My Grandpa Mamitsch was a florist and won numerous awards for his sweet peas at the International Flower Show held in NY in the 40’s.  I am lucky enough to have some of the certificates he received. I nestled the awards in pots of begonias, Gerber daisies and and some perennials. I considered buying cut flowers but decided this way we could plant them and enjoy all summer (or at least until I forget to water them). 

For favors, everyone took home a little peat pot and sweet pea seeds so they could grow their own.

 Crayon art masterpiece by Maryanne- isn’t it cool?

Something went wrong with our plan for the punch. It tasted good but the little marshmallow peep ducks weren’t swimming properly- kept flopping over…

Since rain was in the forecast, we put the tent up on the deck. It was decorated with big white and blue tissue paper flowers which we hung from the ceiling. 

 For sure…

My friend Lorine made some killer cupcakes…. and here’s the banner before it’s assembled. I made it using my Triangle Box ScoreBoard die and Serif Essential letters. 

We asked everyone to fill out one of these and sent them to the important people who could not be at the shower. I’ll make a book from them for the baby so he knows how much he is already loved. 

My three amazing girls (and baby)! So glad I have them…

Thanks for stopping by 🙂

A Cut Above class

When I saw there was a die cutting class being offered by Jennifer McGuire, Nicole Magouirk, and Kristina Werner, I had to sign up. They are such amazing designers- I knew I would pick up lots of helpful tips and tricks. So far it has been fun and I’m trying to keep up (kind of) with the lessons and do a project that has been shown that day. That is why I am posting two days in a row- shocking, I know…

On this card, the idea was to use cut out shapes. I am ashamed to say I had a set of Framelits from a 2 CHA’s ago that I had never used. So I cracked those babies open and had some fun.
  1. First I folded a card base made from my favorite Cougar 100 lb white cardstock. I ran it through the Big Shot using my Wreath Textured Impression folder (now available at your LSS!). I used a Robin’s Egg Color Box pigment pad and brayer to get a good overall coat of ink on one side of the folder. I folded over the other side and ran it through using the Multi-purpose Platform.
  2. I cut several Framelit openings- one circle in the center of the card and a larger frame from a piece of aqua. I added the aqua cutout behind the card. 
  3. Then I cut a white butterfly from the Birds and Butterflies Sizzlit set, flared the wings out a little and put a line of adhesive down the middle of the butterfly and centered it in the middle of the card.
  4. For the sentiment, I used the Daisies2Garden stamp set from The Stamps of Life. Inside it says… “a happy birthday”. You can always use a birthday card! I raised the inside of the sentiment on foam dots.
  5. I also used my Hydrangeas & Border die to add an aqua, white and aqua chevron pattern under the sentiment.

Let’s see how long I can keep the streak going… 🙂

Shower

This weekend, my daughters and I are hosting a baby shower for my other daughter. Here’s a pic of the invitations that I created using the Sizzix eclips. I drew an elephant in Illustrator and saved it as an .svg file, then cut it out on the eclips. The detailed cuts on this machine are unbelievable. Those little gray elephants are only about 1″ big! 

I curled the elephants’ ears out from their body to give a little dimension. This green shimmer paper is beautiful but almost too heavy. The ears did not roll back as smoothly as I would have liked and I think thinner cardstock would have worked better. But the color was not as good… so I chose color over weight…

I printed the card bases on the computer and then used the die cut elephants as accents. I also used the rickrack border from my Bigz Hydrangea & Border die coming in June from the Sweet Treats collection. Stay tuned for the rest of the decor- we were hard at work today… I am hoping it doesn’t rain Saturday (even though it’s a shower :-)).