Sizzix Maker Challenge with Eileen Hull's House Pocket

Hi everyone and welcome back! There are so many fun challenges going on at the moment for us creatives and one of them is the Sizzix Maker Challenge with Eileen Hull's House Pocket die set.

This challenge is all about using Eileen's House Pocket die. You can also use Eileen's Birds & Butterflies, and Stitchy Flower dies as embellishment pieces too. Starting today and ending on August 30th, you can enter your own House Pocket make on the Maker Challenge Page. You can enter as many times as you want, too! Eileen will announce our winner on Facebook Live Thursday, August 31st, so be sure to tune in. Not only does the winner get Eileen Hull's Heartfelt Journal die (which is currently sold out in a lot of places) but they also get a stash of felt from National Nonwovens!

So by way of inspiration here's my project using the House Pocket die set (and a butterfly from the Birds & Butterflies set).

This canvas was one of those where I got lost in the process of making it without taking photos along the way I'm afraid, but here are the basic steps taken so you can achieve a similar look yourselves;

1. Cover a canvas or sturdy board with papers (I used vintage French book pages and some sewing pattern pieces) using a thin coat of gel medium to adhere (Crazing Distress Collage Medium or similar is perfect. Then give the whole lot a thin coat of white gesso to unify, taking care to ensure you can still see the writing/patterns underneath.
2. Stamp over the whole board with your choice of stamps using a pale grey permanent ink (in this case Stampotique's 'Stitched Houses' and Watering Can Archival Ink).
3. Die cut the house pieces from stiff card several times and glue in place onto the centre of the canvas. To ensure the shapes were properly defined I added at least two layers of every element except the 'bricks', which are in fact the waste from cutting the windows! Apply an uneven coat of white gesso over the house.
4. Now you need brush water over the whole canvas before adding layers of heavily diluted acrylic paint. As each near transparent layer is added allow it to pool in all the cracks and crevices and if you have the patience let it air dry so as not to burn off any of the pigment with your heat tool. For this I used Dina Wakley paints (currently on offer at The Funkie Junkie Boutique though August 17th) with an initial layer of Rosy, followed by a layer of Elephant and a final layer of Umber). To make the house stand out further you can also add a thin line of darker paint, adding water and letting it bleed out to add shading.
5. Apply lines of washi/design tape under the house and draw a border around the edge with permanent ink or paint (I used a black Dylusions paint pen for this). You can also add words to your border, in this case Stampotique's 'When We Love We Grow') and I chose to stamp the same words on the house itself. Stamp Trees and Bushes onto fabric using black permanent ink and glue in place either side of the house (I used Tim Holtz' Textile Surfaces as they are self-adhesive).
6. To finish add green and red paint dots to simulate flowers and add matching butterflies. I also painted the heart on the door with the same red paint and blended a little brown permanent ink around the edges to give them dimension. For me it was back to the Dina Wakley paints for this step, using Evergreen, Lime and Ruby paints, highlighted with more of the metallic Rosy shade and Potting Soil Archival ink.

I hope that gives you a plan for tackling your own canvas using your die cuts, and remember, you don't have to use the same colours if you'd prefer a brighter or darker version. You will need to use at least one metallic shade if you want to get some shimmer and shine into your finished canvas. Now here are some close ups so you can see more of the details;

It's the little details that can make all the difference to a project like this, like a dot of Liquid Pearls in Rose Gold as the door handle. And it's when you get in really close that the layers of colour start to become even more obvious.

So that's my Sizzix Maker Challenge project. Now it's over to you to grab those dies and enter! For even more inspiration with these dies and the rest of Eileen's designs why not become a member of the Eileen Hull Fan Club! You'll also be able to share your own EH projects there too.

If you haven't already, don't forget to sign up for your copy of Eileen Hull's 'Journal Treasury' e-book HERE to help give you lots of ideas for using the Journal die and creating your own journals. At only $11.87 (roughly £9.20) through to the end of August, grab it quick before the price goes up!

That's it from me for today but I'll be back with more to share. So for now whatever you're up to, take care of yourselves and get creative! Jenny xxx