Eileen Hull and Paper Trail

I ran into Eileen Hull in the middle of a Walmart parking lot tonight. Almost literally ran into her as she was walking across the parking lot.

We had picked up a few things at Walmart and were leaving the parking lot when I saw the cutest vintage trailer with a Scotty dog on the front. I made Dear Handyman drive around the back and sure enough it said Paper Trail so I knew it was Eileen's.

I took a few photos in front of Scotty and jumped back into the car. As we started to drive away again I saw a woman walking past holding an In-n-Out cup. I jumped back out of the car and ran up to greet her. Luckily we have known each other for a while or it would have been a very strange encounter.

She had just experienced her first In-n-Out burger and fries for dinner. That is a totally California experience!

She is in town to visit Sizzix this week. Hopefully she will come in a day early and I will have a chance to spend some time with her.

Nicest person, EVER! Such a great bit of serendipity to run into her, in a Walmart parking lot.

Designers Craft Connection Blog Hop September - Vacation Memories

Welcome to the Designers Craft Connection Blog Hop for the month of September. The theme this month is to display vacation memories and often these include souvenirs that are too bulky to fit inside a  scrapbook. I created a solution to hold all of the little things that make up vacation memories.

I love little drawers and I especially love when they are bright and colorful. I made these drawers using the Sizzix Box, Candy Drawer die by Eileen Hull. This works best using board stock but I wanted to use lots of my two-sided card stock in my stash. It worked well because I attached all of the boxes to each other so they have added stability. Plus I love the Summery colors of the papers.

I began by digging through all of my stash then die cutting and folding all of the pieces needed to make nine drawers. Once I decided how I liked the order of the boxes to appear I glued the adjacent sides and tops to form a stack of three boxes across by three boxes high. I used a 1/2" circle punch to create the finger hole on each drawer front.

I filled the drawers with little items that I've collected from various vacations over the years. I have squished pennies from lots of tourist locations, tiny sea shells from different beaches and stamps from around the world {mostly dream vacation spots}. I also included some items that I've collected while thrifting on vacations.

I used some small items as drawer pulls to highlight what is inside the drawers. A tiny sea shell and button add interest to the front of the drawers.

You can create a set of these drawers or keep adding to this group of drawers every season. This is such a fun way to organize little items. They hold fond memories of Summer vacations.

Please use the DCC blog hop button on the right to continue to get inspired by the many creative designers of the Designers Craft Connection blog hop.

This is linked to:
Lamberts Lately

CHA Winter 2013 - Star Struck!

I already admitted that I am a Paper Crafting "Groupie / Stalker / Super Fan" so it shouldn't surprise anyone when I say that I had a great time visiting with some wonderful Stars of the paper crafting industry at the Craft and Hobby Association trade show today. I will share more photos of the displays and new products later but today's post is all about Star gazing.

My favorite super star is the oh-so-talented Tim Holtz. I am holding the Sizzix Alterations catalog that I designed for him. He really is absolutely brilliant and so creative. Love love love working with this guy!

Karen Burniston is another designer that amazes me. I got to know her a few years ago when I designed her logo. I love how she thinks in 3 dimensions and makes things pop!

Another designer that I adore is Eileen Hull. I don't think anyone could be any sweeter than Eileen.

I just met Brenda Walton but I feel like I've known her for a while. I worked on all of her Sizzix packaging and her attention to detail is amazing.

That's it for the Star gazing. I will be returning to the show again tomorrow so I will have more photos of new products and some awesome display ideas. Vintage display ideas were everywhere.

Thrifty Crafters Are Trendsetters!

I just got back from opening day at CHA {Craft and Hobby Association} Winter tradeshow. It is the largest tradeshow for the crafting industry. I can only describe it as fun, exciting, entertaining and enlightening.

I admit that I am a bit star-struck by the famous crafter/bloggers in the industry. The first favorite person I saw was Tim Holtz. He is so popular that I got just a quick hello and then he was off talking to the retailers.

Noodles & Company Valentine Treat

As a treat for Valentine's Day, my boyfriend and I went down to San Diego for the day. Our main goal was to dine at the Noodles & Company restaurant using the gift certificate I won at Eileen Hull's Noodle Ornament contest. And in case you want to see my winning noodle ornament, click here.

We arrived in San Diego a little early so we decided to go to our other San Diego destination, the Paper Tales store. This is a great scrapbooking/paper crafting store. Not only do they carry a nice selection of papers, they also sell individual vintage items like dominoes, costume jewelry, bingo markers and such. It is a treat just to look at everything that they carry.

We also wandered around the shops at Seaport Village along the waterfront. And I even had a chance to stop in at a Goodwill store and found the start of a new project.

Then off we went to the Noodles & Company near the San Diego Sport Arena. I am a big noodle fan, always have been, always will be. Clutching my gift certificate and letter of congratulations from Jaclyn at Noodles & Company, we stood there looking at the great selection of noodle dishes. We selected the Pad Thai and Indonesian Peanut Saute. Both were excellent and their prices are very reasonable.

The food was great, the restaurant was really nice and if/when they open one in Orange County {hint, hint}, I will visit there often.

Thank you Jaclyn and Eileen. We had a wonderful meal and I agree with Eileen when she said "I Love Noodles & Company."

Christmas Noodle Ornament... Really!

Today I Created | A Christmas Ornament using Noodles.

I was visiting Eileen Hull's blog and discovered that she is having a "Noodle Contest". The contest was to make an ornament or decoration using noodles and you could win a $10 gift certificate to Noodles & Company. I love Eileen's blog and I love noodles, put them together and I'm in!

Off I went looking around for noodles in my kitchen.

I don't cook a lot but sometimes I get a little ambitious. I had these rice noodles sitting around for some time and now they were going to come in handy. I dropped them in boiling water for about ONE second just to soften them. Any more than that and they would have been too soft for this project.

I placed about one fourth of the noodles into a round, flat-bottomed bowl to create a wreath shape. I used a blow dryer to quickly dry the noodles so they didn't get sticky. Once I had the shape and it was dry, I removed it from the bowl and sprayed it with Olive Vine, Glimmer Mist while drying it with the blow dryer. Again, any moisture would make the noodles sticky so I needed to dry everything as I worked.

As a final touch I glued wooden beads and a ribbon to complete the look of the wreath. You could also make a bird's nest with these noodles. This was such a fast and fun project.

Addendum #1: Thank you to Noodles & Company and Eileen Hull. I was just notified that my noodle ornament won the noodle ornament contest. I can't wait to experience the food at Noodles & Company. Thanks again!

This is linked to Making The World Cuter.

Blog Hop - House, 3-D

Today I Created | A 3-D House for the first Triple Play Blog Hop Thursday

This was my first experience using the Sizzix ScoreBoard dies by Eileen Hull and I can see the wonderful possibilities. I decided to try some unusual chipboard to use as the basis of my 3-D House project.

I found some old LP records in my attic recently so I dug through them and found John Lennon's Double Fantasy album. He was such an icon of music and peaceful protests that I knew I could create something with his album cover.

I had to be a little creative to die cut the shape so that both John and Yoko's image could be clearly seen once the house was assembled.

After most of the house was built but before gluing on the roof, I attached the wire so that it curved in a graceful bend. Next I used Photoshop to print images of butterflies that I found on the Graphics Fairy blog and carefully cut them out. I arranged them by color so that they start off in shades of blue/green and rise up to orange. I attached the butterflies onto the wire to appear as if in flight from the door up to the rooftop.

My Triple Play Blog Hop project is a tribute to John Lennon and the magic of his message that is still relevant today.

Please click on the Triple Play Blog Hop button on the right to continue to view the work of other designers and their creative use of this same 3-D House die. And next Thursday we will be featuring the 3-D Twist Cube die.