Eileen Hull

Three dimensional art... with heart

Attempt at Organizing

Found three cute little date books at Books a Million and they were only a dollar each! Never mind that they will expire at the end of 2009- I have other plans. One went to my friend Kim, who is the queen of recycling. Not sure what she will do with it but know it will be cool.
My plan was to (finally) record all of my punches, stamps, markers, and various other craft supplies. Once I finish filling the book in with “already purchased supplies”, I will never have to hesitate and wonder whether or not I already have a 1 1/4″ circle punch. It will be kept it in the car with me and brought in when going into a craft store. The trick will be keeping it up.
A couple of tips… leave a few pages between each section (for new items) and add tabs for categories. On the pages where you are punching, put a bright piece of cardstock under the punched image to make the shape stand out. When entering marker color samples, keep in mind they will probably bleed, so put scrap paper behind the page when marking.
Whatever it is you collect and want to keep track of, a fun book like this is great to keep on hand and prevent purchasing duplicate items. More money for new stuff! 🙂

Sponsor for Rotary Golf Tournament

I am proud to say that my design company will be a sponsor for the 13th Annual Charity Golf Tournament at Ft. Belvoir today. The event is hosted by the Crystal City- Pentagon Rotary Club. Proceeds benefit scholarships, community and world charitable activities and military support. My husband is president of this club and I have to say I am impressed at how active Rotarians are and how much they do for our community and the world. I wish much success to all the golfers and thanks to the sponsor companies!

Gift card mania

I never realized how handy gift cards were. It seems I am not alone- according to IT Facts, 35% of all Americans bought gift cards in 2008!

My friend Peggy had a birthday last week and we met for lunch today. She is a voracious reader so I thought a gift card from Books a Million would be appreciated. She recently lent me a series of books by Charlaine Harris. The HBO series True Blood is (loosely) based on these books. What’s up with that? Vampires are everywhere these days! Kinda creepy…

ANYway, I happened to have a piece of light blue matboard on hand so I ran it through the Sizzix Big Shot machine, added a Stampin Up! rub-on and finished it off with the accessory flower that comes on the die. I like to turn the flower over to the white side and then put the colored center back in for a little interest. The card I enclosed was cut to the size of the business card /(and gift card!) box and was made from a scrap of foamboard. I love how the surface takes stamping and ink. The stamp I used was also from Stampin Up! I was able to purchase a gift card in blue, green and brown so the card even matched the box 🙂 To keep it closed I used one of those plastic rubber bands that little girls use for their tiny pony tails- they really stretch well and have just the right amount of strength.

We had a great lunch at the Corner Bakery- I think we are caught up- for a week anyway… Hope you have a great year Peggy!

Anniversary and 100th post!

What a day… the time has gone by so quickly and I can’t imagine what life would be like without my Hayward.

And who would ever have thought I could come up with that much to say to fill 100 posts on this blog? Of course if you know me, you’re saying, “That’s a joke, right?” I will admit that I may have inherited a wee gift of the gab from my Irish half.

In fact, there have been many times in my life that I laid in bed thinking to myself, “WHY did I say that?” Something happened this week that reminded me how important it is to think before hitting the “send” key. It’s bad enough to be replaying badly spoken words over in your head, but those do, thankfully, fade with time. The words that travel through cyberspace may never be taken back so take an extra second to consider if you want your message out there forever for the world to see. Thanks to my fellow Council members Vicki, Linda, Lorine, Brenda, Ann, Katie, Phyllis, and Kirsten who handled a tough situation with grace and patience. The Council is an amazing group of women I am proud to call friends.

Things are getting crazy here. Lots of deadlines. I am working on my next batch of stuff for Sizzix and planning for Demo Days in the Barn, on October 16-17 from 10-2 each day. I’ll be giving a sneak peek at my new Sizzix Scoreboard dies due to be released in November. We’ll have make and takes, door prizes and giveaways. November 13-14 is the annual Barn Sale here and Fairfax High School Show is the following weekend! In the meantime, a really exciting opportunity for another whole product line and a large order for Christmas cards from a corporation has to get done!
Also on the horizon, it’s off to the Garlic Festival next weekend in NY with my Mom and sisters. We have a booth called Family Fleece and sell fleece hats, baby seat covers, scarves, etc. We like when there’s a nip in the air so parents are reminded to cover their children’s heads but I curse global warming- it’s been 75 degrees the past 3 years! Nevertheless, we have a great time catching up on the latest family events and enjoy a few whiskey sours with dinner at one of our favorite restaurants.
I hope your fall is shaping up to be exciting and full of promise as well!

Categories:
CHA

It’s a great day!

Started off with a phone call from my son Chris who is in Iraq and has been sick. It’s very frustrating to have no information and be worrying about what’s happening. So he’s getting better and sounded almost back to his old self.

Then I came down to my studio and there was a blog post by my friend, a very talented designer, Jennifer Ellefson who created a beautiful garden cupcake holder out of one of my new (and yet unreleased) Sizzix Scoreboard dies! Thanks Jenn- it’s so pretty… love what you did!

But wait, there’s more! Here’s a Christmas gift card box I made for some store samples. The business card box is very versatile. I used BasicGrey papers to cover the box and the embellishments that come with the die to deck it out. Do you have any great ideas for dies? Let me know wonderful readers! My day can only get better. Thanks for stopping by…

Inspired at Home giveaway

Just a quick post this morning! If you would like a free copy of my book Foamboard Magic, tune in to Inspired at Home Sunday evening, September 13 to win it. I’ll be on at about 7:40 to announce the winner, but please tune in for the whole show. Ana Arujo, of When Creativity Knocks, will be one of the guests. Ana and her daughter Meghan have a production company and interview craft designers, review new products and in general have a great time showing us some great (free) project ideas!

Speaking of free projects, here’s one of mine, a foamboard frame, posted at the Inspired at Home blog. I created it using the tools and techniques mentioned in the book.

Hope you are all having a great weekend!