Hi everyone and welcome. A new month equals a new theme and this time around it’s Box Bonanza month. Eileen Hull has designed many different box dies over the years so Eileen's teams are excited to share their ideas. I decided to use Eileen's Sizzix Scoreboards 'Card Caddy' Die to create a case to hold a new accordion album - with no spine this type of album can flop around a bit so a bespoke box is the perfect solution to keep it safe.
The Caddy case has been decorated on both sides to match the pages of the album inside, with paper collage, washi, stamping, stencilling, stitching and lots of trims. The accordion album measures 5 1/8 " (13cm) square, so just a touch smaller than the width of the Card Caddy (which measures 5 1/4") to allow it to slip in and out easily and there's plenty of room for layered pages. In fact I made my accordion pages double-sided with covers cut from matboard and decorated with the flowers from Eileen's Sizzix Thinlits 'Envelope, Folder & Flowers' Die Set.
Inside the album opens out onto the first of seven fabric backed, double-sided spreads, each depicting bits of hand-drawn architecture spotted whilst visiting a local National Trust estate. Knowing I wanted to make use of Eileen's Sizzix Thinlits 'Floral Silhouettes' Die Set (available only at scrapbook.com) including these drawings felt like a good way to give them some context.
The basic backgrounds have been created with a collage of book pages, music manuscript, typed sheets, lined and squared paper, glued to a thin base layer and backed with muslin to help stop them tearing when stitched. It's easy to blend the various sheets together with a little coordinating paint, leaving some of the text visible and some covered.
After drawing and inking over the architectural designs colour has been added with washi tape, gel printed tissue and some beautiful trims from the lovely Sharon Louise at Rowan Tree Crafts.
You may by now have spotted some stencilled letters in the background, created by using a homemade card stencil cut with Eileen's Sizzix Thinlits 'Tiled Alphanumeric' Die. Using Eileen's dies to create stencils and stamps makes them an even more invaluable creative tool.
I wanted to include the Floral Silhouettes throughout the album but initially struggled to pick the right colours. In the end I die cut them from black card before blending Sizzix Luster Wax over them, starting with 'Ivory' before adding 'Gold' highlights. It really helps the layers to stand out.
All the stamping has been done using Eileen's stamp sets including adding the leaves behind the flowers, labels and days of the week.
Stitching is always great for adding extra texture so I have included machine stitching in black to emphasise some of the architectural details and hand stitching simple cross marks with Sashiko thread.
I hope you've enjoyed taking a closer look through this accordion album with its matching Card Caddy case. Make sure to check out all the fantastic projects featuring Eileen's box dies from the rest of the team - links to their posts can be found on Eileen's blog throughout the month.
For now thanks for visiting,
Jenny xxx
