Handy Scrapholder for Eileen Hull Designs

Hi everyone and welcome. This month Eileen Hull's Inspiration Team have been sharing more projects, ideas and inspiration using her latest dies - the Gift Box and Display Stand - over on her website. Whilst not as decorative as previous projects, the one I have to share today is a practical solution for holding those little scraps and leftovers that you can't bear to bin (because they may come in useful one day!) Combining the new Display Stand with the hugely popular Pocket Notebook, here is my idea for a scrapholder for your desk;

Tied together with ribbon at the top, it stands up by itself and when untied, the pockets have room to expand and hold even more bits and pieces. In essence it's one of those expanding file folders but in a smaller, desk friendly size. Here's how it came together;

I have a collection of small old books found in charity shops and love to use the pages for mixed media projects, but often the covers are just as beautiful and equally as useful. When looking through the pile I found a worn red one with a sun bleached spine and a little embossing on the front. Being almost the same size as the Pocket Notebook it was perfect for the job in hand. I removed the covers with a sharp knife and set the text block and spine to one side. Die cutting two cover pieces from Matboard using the Pocket Journal die, I joined them at the spine creating the widest cover possible and covered the holes with spare strips of thin card.

Below you'll see the combination of paints and inks used to replicate the colour of the book, also added to a Matboard cut of the Display Stand. After painting both sections with Gold Rush and Red Lipstick Fresco Finish paint I rubbed red archival ink over the top. Then the surfaces were rubbed over with sandpaper to age them and reveal some of the Gold Rush paint. Finally I rubbed Walnut Stain Distress Oxide Ink over the stand, the notebook and the book covers.

With all the surfaces prepared it was time for assembly; the book covers were glued to the outside of the Pocket Notebook as shown below and ribbon was stuck onto the centre of the back cover. You may notice there's a tear in the surface of the spine (due to being a little too enthusiastic with the sandpaper!) This bit gets covered up next so doesn't matter.

I glued the back cover and spine of the Notebook to the front of the assembled Display Stand as shown below, holding it all in place with pegs until it was dry and secure. You'll be able to see that the ribbon is held securely in place by being sandwiched between the back cover and the stand.

To create the pockets inside the scrapholder I glued together ten C6 envelopes and chopped them off at the top so they would be four inches tall. After tea staining them all I added double-sided adhesive tape to the bottom at the centre of each envelope as shown below. Each envelope was stuck to the next to create a concertina effect. I then used wet glue to stick the front and back envelopes to the inside of the Pocket Notebook covers. This makes the pockets at the front and back narrower than the rest but also makes them more secure than if they were attached in one small strip.

Below are a couple more photos of the finished scrapholder. The first one shows it from the back where the stand section of the Display Stand can be seen holding the pockets and covers vertical.

This second photo shows the front cover which can fall forward when the ribbon is untied. The holder can be expanded or retracted (depending on how much you've crammed into it!)

Given a bit more time I may well create a panel to decorate and embellish the front of this scrapholder, but for now it works for the intended purpose and retains that look of an old book with 'pages' inside. Having checked the sizes you could recreate this project  with a smaller holder just by using the Notebook or Wrapped Journal dies too.

I hope this project has given you ideas for creating your own expanding storage using Eileen's dies. Make sure to check out what the rest of the team have made by visiting Eileen's website.

For now, thanks for visiting,
Jenny xxx