Organising with Eileen Hull dies ...

Hello Friends

This month Eileen Hull's Inspiration Team are sharing projects using Eileen's dies to help us get organised.  In my case I have created a couple of things that a boy or girl (or grown up!) might find useful on their workspace/desk.

I used one of Eileen's new dies (Cardbox, Planner Storage & Organiser- Sizzix 662361) and also one of her original Scoreboard dies (Block/Cube/Bank Sizzix 658983) to create a notepad holder and a phone/pen holder.  I also used some wonderful stamp sets by AALL & Create (Set #13 and #14 by Olga Heldwein), they are such fun stamps!

In my stash of papers I have lots of painty backgrounds that I created after taking a couple of classes with Seth Apter - for this one I used his monoprint technique and then brayered some white gesso over the top to lighten the colour and add more texture before adding some paint splats.

I die cut the planner box from my painty card and constructed it, it comes in one main piece and goes together like a dream.  I made two boxes and glued them together to give double the storage space.  You can of course, have a whole row of these, free standing or glued together - they are very substantial and will hold CDs, small books, cards, pens, pencils, brushes - whatever you choose to organise!

I stamped and fussy cut the character for the front, added some hashtag stamps from the same stamp set, made a couple of bookmarks and notepads, all stamped from Set #13 and #14.  Don't you just love that little character peeking over the edge!!

I wanted to make something to house a mobile phone and so I used the Box/Cube, it was originally designed to be able to have a hole cut in the top to make the box into a bank.  I used the idea to cut a larger hole that would house a phone.

I also cut six holes that can house pens, scissors etc., before constructing the box, again cut from my painty background card.  I added the stamping from Set #13.

A view from the top so that you can see the hole I cut for the mobile phone.  I simply measured the phone and cut the hole with a sharp knife.  For a larger phone you could simply cut the hole diagonally and still have room for a couple of holes for pens etc.

I used the left over pieces of card to create some notepads and a couple of bookmarks...

I decided to create a robot (as you do!) with a small block and some bits I had in my stash, his 'lightbulb head' is covered with one of the Tim Holtz Idea-ology domes and his body has been stamped with a stamp from Set #14 of the AALL & Create stamp sets.

I hope you will visit Eileen's Blog to see what my talented team mates have been making this month, there have been and will be posts each week sharing organising ideas.

As always, thank you so much for your visit, I hope to see you again soon!

Best Wishes,  Anne xxx

Art With Heart - October Hauntings and Holidays

It is such an exciting month at Eileen Hull's Art With Heart, we have been given the opportunity to use fabulous cardstock from none other than Graphic 45 for our October Challenge - Hauntings and Holidays!  Personally, I am in card heaven, the G45 papers/cardstock are absolutely stunning (and they smell wonderful too...).

Those of you who have followed me for a while know how much I enjoy working in 3D and I wanted to show the versatility of one of Eileen's fabulous dies (Candy Box) by turning it into an Apothecary dresser/cabinet.  Apologies, this is a very picture heavy post, you might want to grab a drink!

Above, you can see the finished cabinet, I will take you through some very brief steps on how I created it.

I cut six Candy Boxes and then some mat/mount board pieces for the cabinet sides, back and shelves.

I painted all of the pieces, inside and out with the gorgeous DecoArt Americana Decor Chalky Paint in Carbon Black.

All of the pieces were then glued together.  I left it overnight to dry.  The cabinet measures approx 8.1/2" wide by 12" tall fully finished.

I used the fabulous Rare Oddities cardstock from Graphic 45 - the hardest part was deciding what side of the cardstock to use!

I covered each of the drawer elements, the whole of the sides and back of the cabinet and each of the shelves with the G45 papers.  I thought you might like to see some close-ups of the different areas of the cabinet.

Starting at the top of the cabinet, I fussy cut some of the papers to provide the 'bookshelf' background, the three faux books on the left, the birdcage, the label '31' on the bottle and the 'Toe of Frog' bottle on the right.  The beautiful top 'Rare Oddities' has also been cut from a sheet of the cardstock.  I cut out a couple of bats and placed them in the domed glass and added a fussy cut 'bats' to the front.

A close up of the items on the top shelf.

On the lower shelf I used some of the cardstock to create a handmade book (on the left), a bottle filled with snake venom, a dome with two skulls inside and a very large spider.  To the right you can see a bottle of Witches Brew, a dome covered in Tim Holtz Clear Rock Candy Distress Crackle Paint and coloured with Alcohol Ink.  The dome contains another skull.  The small bottle at the front contains some blue beads and the domed skull to the rear has been cut from the Rare Oddities cardstock.

Behind the embellishments, for the back of the cabinet, I took a strip of the patterned cardstock, fussy cut a number of the elements from the cardstock and decoupaged these up to create some relief to the cabinet.

A close-up of the book I created (using a real book from a charity shop, cut to size) with elements of the cardstock attached to the front.

A close-up of the bottom shelf to show some of the relief at the back of the cabinet.

A close-up of the finished drawers, I used elements from the cardstock to create the labels where were placed inside some Tim Holtz Idea-ology drawer pulls.

A final view from the side.

If you have got this far, thanks for staying with me, I really LOVED making this cabinet, Eileen's dies and the G45 papers made it so easy.  I will be back again soon with another G45 project.

I hope you will join in Eileen's 'Hauntings and Holidays' Challenge, there is always a fabulous prize on offer, together with lots of inspiration from my teamies throughout the month, see HERE for more details.

Unusually for me, I have found a few fantastic challenges that I can enter with my apothecary cabinet and these are:

Anything But Cute Challenge #6 where the theme is 31 days of Halloween where we must use the number 31 somewhere on our entry.  31 features twice on my project on the top shelf bottle and one on the main shelf, also on a bottle.

Mixed Media Monthly Challenge #17 is Word Search.  The words I have chosen which are incorporated in my entry are: Bat, Skull and Orange - there are several bats and skulls and the shelves are covered with orange patterned cardstock.

Simon Says Stamp Monday Challenge where the theme is Autumn is in the Air.  I am entering my Halloween themed project.

Thanks so much for looking, I hope to see you again soon!

Hugs, Anne xx