Tuesday, May 24, 2016

Alphabet Sewing Box Tutorial

Hello friends!! This month the Eileen Hull Inspiration Team are showcasing Eileen's new Sizzix Paper Flower Party collection. 

I just found out that emails haven't been sent out for my posts lately. I am so sorry about that, and I don't know how I missed it. I think I have fixed it now and there should be an email coming soon, if anyone is still not getting emails, please let me know. 


The flower dies in this collection are wonderful and you'll be able to make a large variety of flowers, and even more so if you mix the dies. 

Layers of ink - Alphabet Sewing Box Tutorial by Anna-Karin, with Sizzix dies by Eileen Hull and Tim holtz stamps
I made an alphabet sewing box for my son. Since I made my Vintage Cantilever Sewing Box earlier this year, Anton has been asking me to make him a blue one. To give it a different twist, I turned it into an alphabet box. He walked in on me when I was busy putting it together, before I had glued on the flowers and added anything to the boxes, and thought it looked pretty, but 'needed something more'. Funny. If you want to see another example of flower-making using a different Eileen Hull die, check out my Yellow Flower card

Layers of ink - Alphabet Sewing Box Tutorial by Anna-Karin, with Sizzix dies by Eileen Hull
These are the pieces you need for one sewing box. They were die cut from white Little Sizzles Mat Board. 

Layers of ink - Alphabet Sewing Box Tutorial by Anna-Karin, with Sizzix dies by Eileen Hull and Tim holtz stamps
I painted all the pieces with Stormy Sky Distress Paint. This is one of my least used blue shades of Distress Paint and I was wondering why I use it so rarely, since it is a great neutral blue.

Layers of ink - Alphabet Sewing Box Tutorial by Anna-Karin, with Sizzix dies by Eileen Hull and Tim holtz stamps
When the paint was dry, I stamped the pieces with three different alphabet stamps by Tim Holtz. I love alphabet stamps, the School Desk one is my most used stamp and the new Typo background stamp is awesome and if you use just one row of it, it looks like many different stamps.

Layers of ink - Alphabet Sewing Box Tutorial by Anna-Karin, with Sizzix dies by Eileen Hull and Tim holtz stamps
Sand all the edges. I ended up not using the piece at the bottom left - which is die cut from the Recipe Card Box. I used it on my Vintage Sewing Box as a divider between the two upper compartments and if you want to, check that post out for how to use it.

Layers of ink - Alphabet Sewing Box Tutorial by Anna-Karin, with Sizzix dies by Eileen Hull and Tim holtz stamps
A piece of ordinary tissue was stamped with the Newsprint and Typo stamps and Jet Black ink and then I die cut flowers from it using the Romance Flower die. There are four differently sized flowers on the die. You can die cut quite a lot of flowers in one go, since the tissue is so thin. I die cut a lot more flowers than what you see here.

Layers of ink - Alphabet Sewing Box Tutorial by Anna-Karin, with Sizzix dies by Eileen Hull and Tim holtz stamps
Layer the flowers together and add a brad to the middle. You need quite a lot of layers to make the flowers look full. Crumble up and then separate the sheets.

Layers of ink - Alphabet Sewing Box Tutorial by Anna-Karin, with Sizzix dies by Eileen Hull and Tim holtz stamps
Mist two of the flowers with Tumbled Glass and two with Weathered Wood.

Layers of ink - Alphabet Sewing Box Tutorial by Anna-Karin, with Sizzix dies by Eileen Hull and Tim holtz stamps
Die cut leaves from color-core cardstock. The Spring Leaves die has four great leaf shapes, making it a very versatile die, and since it is a Bigz die, you can die cut the leaves from thick materials too.

Layers of ink - Alphabet Sewing Box Tutorial by Anna-Karin, with Sizzix dies by Eileen Hull and Tim holtz stamps
Emboss in the Daisy Wreath folder, and then sand.

Layers of ink - Alphabet Sewing Box Tutorial by Anna-Karin, with Sizzix dies by Eileen Hull and Tim holtz stamps
To fill the boxes, I die cut a lot of different letters and numbers, so that he can write words and practice. Some of them were die cut from fun foam, and some were die cut from mat board which was first painted with Distress Paint. I used Tim Holtz: Alphabet Typo Upper, Vintage Market XL, Billboard, Word Play and Block Talk Lowercase dies. That way, he can practice on how letters and numbers look in different fonts, capital and lowercase.

Layers of ink - Alphabet Sewing Box Tutorial by Anna-Karin, with Sizzix dies by Eileen Hull and Tim holtz stamps
It is easy to assemble the box and since I showed all the steps in my Vintage Sewing Box tutorial, I won't repeat them here, but if you aren't sure, just check out that post.

Layers of ink - Alphabet Sewing Box Tutorial by Anna-Karin, with Sizzix dies by Eileen Hull and Tim holtz stamps
The flowers and leaves were glued to the top of the box.

Layers of ink - Alphabet Sewing Box Tutorial by Anna-Karin, with Sizzix dies by Eileen Hull and Tim holtz stamps
I was really happy with the look of these text tissue flowers and they are easy to make.

Layers of ink - Alphabet Sewing Box Tutorial by Anna-Karin, with Sizzix dies by Eileen Hull and Tim holtz stamps
Layer the leaves under the flowers.

Here's the smaller of the Newsprint flowers, you could also mix the two stamped patterns, or use something like a polka dot stamp instead. I used the same Newsprint stamp on the background of yesterday's mixed media layout.

Layers of ink - Alphabet Sewing Box Tutorial by Anna-Karin, with Sizzix dies by Eileen Hull and Tim holtz stamps
I used Tim Holtz Alpha Dies as handles, from the front, you see the letters 'A' and 'B'.

Layers of ink - Alphabet Sewing Box Tutorial by Anna-Karin, with Sizzix dies by Eileen Hull and Tim holtz stamps
I used some matte blue brads that I found in my stash. I have a lot of coloured brads that I got years ago.

Layers of ink - Alphabet Sewing Box Tutorial by Anna-Karin, with Sizzix dies by Eileen Hull and Tim holtz stamps
This is what it looks like open, although you can of course open it even more.

Layers of ink - Alphabet Sewing Box Tutorial by Anna-Karin, with Sizzix dies by Eileen Hull and Tim holtz stamps
The boxes are filled with the letters and numbers.

Layers of ink - Alphabet Sewing Box Tutorial by Anna-Karin, with Sizzix dies by Eileen Hull and Tim holtz stamps
I need to die cut some more of the common letters, because he already ran out of a's.

Layers of ink - Alphabet Sewing Box Tutorial by Anna-Karin, with Sizzix dies by Eileen Hull and Tim holtz stamps
To make the top lid close, I did the same thing that I did on my Vintage Sewing Box, namely to die cut the back part of the lid one more time, and use that as a closing mechanism.

Layers of ink - Alphabet Sewing Box Tutorial by Anna-Karin, with Sizzix dies by Eileen Hull and Tim holtz stamps
And there is is done. Mat board projects last real well, even with pretty heavy use. Anton has boxes and containers that I made over three years ago, and which he uses for storage of little things. They are all still in perfect order even though they are handled a lot.

I hope you enjoyed this tutorial! Thank you so much for stopping by!

Happy crafting!

Anna-Karin

Supplies



14 comments:

  1. WOW Anna! You totally rocked it girl! TFS

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  2. I love this! It is so pretty, and the flowers are beautiful. If anyone wants to encourage learning and creativity in their children, they should see this and your other projects you have made for Anton. All those letters and numbers in different colors, sizes and fonts. Brilliant! Of course, I love all of your stamping on this box, too.

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    1. Thank you so much Marci!! I would have loved getting all those letters myself as a child.

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  4. This is one of my most favourite of Eileen's dies and I love how you made it suitable for Anton, the blue is beautiful and I really do love how you did the flowers too. I am sure Anton will have great fun with this! Anne xx

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  5. i absolutely and totally love this!!! beautiful as always Anna-Karin!!

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  6. I love the blue! I'll bet Anton has fun opening the box up and playing with it. Great idea to store letters in there!

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  7. My goodness such an awful lot of pieces for this box! But it is so very clever with all of it's drawers - I love the alphabet and text stampings on the pieces and blooms and all the BLUE! what a fun box for Anton!

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  8. Bloody hell this is amazing. You are so clever and although I haven't visited for ages I do always look at what you are doing. This is seriously incredible. Your stash must be huge and you always seem to have the perfect stuff to make your projects. I want to make something like this for the twins.... will have to recycle a box or something. This is amazing Anna-Karin and your stuff always makes me want to create <3

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    1. Thank you so much Val!! You could use chipboard instead too. The twins would love it!

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  9. Boy oh boy did this sewing box come out fabulous! You nailed this Anna-Karin! I may have to just order those stamps, love the look of them!

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  10. Boy oh boy did this sewing box come out fabulous! You nailed this Anna-Karin! I may have to just order those stamps, love the look of them!

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  11. So glad to see a die now to make this cute sewing basket. I've seen these baskets out in blog land but dies always make the projects go faster. Just letting you know that the only link in the email that I received that worked was the link to the Make A Wish Layout. Could you see if there is something wrong. Thanks.

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    1. Thank you so much! Yes, the die makes it so much faster and easier. Thank you for letting me know about the links. When I checked my own email, all the links seemed to work - except for the very first ones, which are more of a list of the projects in the email, rather than direct links. I hope there won't be any problems in the future, when there will just be one project per email. / Anna-Karin

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Thank you so much for leaving a comment! Happy Crafting!