Tutorial: Bookcase using Eileen Hull Dies

Hello and welcome to you all. 

I was playing around with Eileen Hull's Gift Box Die the other day and decided to stand it on its end and found that it made a great little bookcase for two small books made using Eileen's Pocket Notebook Die and a small box made using her Stamp and Photo Storage Die (see the end of the blog post for the details of the dies used).

It does use quite a lot of patterned paper so you will see that I have had to piece bits here and there to get the box and the two books out of this set of Maja Design Papers left over from a workshop.

I have used some of Eileen's flower dies to make the white flower and I'll give a link to that tutorial at the end of the blog post too.

This is the vintage box I made some time ago and found that it fitted in the bookcase beautifully!

So here is how it came together:

I used the Gift Box Die in exactly the same way that Eileen made her Valentines Box. I unfortunately didn't take any photographs of the cutting and glueing together as I was just going to make a box the same as Eileen's but you can click the link below to go to the video to see how she put the box pieces together.

https://www.facebook.com/eileenhulldesigns/videos/214378322936740/

I felt the back of my box needed to be more secure as it was going to stand up so I used washi tape to hold it together. Once you start adding papers it becomes much more sturdy.

The piece that had been cut off from the third die cut I glued to the inside base of the box to make it more secure.

I covered the sides and top with patterned papers folding about 1/2" over the back. I managed to cut one 4 1/4" x 12" piece scoring it at 7 1/2" which covered the top and one side. Then a further piece 4 1/4" x 7 1/2" to cover the other side piece. Hope that makes sense!

It is helpful to cut a little notch from the sides of the papers so they fold and glue a little easier.

Here you can see how it is taking shape and I have started adding patterned paper to the inside. I had to keep trimming this a little, then a little more so I could get a good fit. This piece was two bits which didn't meet in the middle so I had to add a little strip of sentiment.

I like using dark colours inside boxes - it gives them a bit of depth.

I used some fancy scallop cuts to decorate the sides - which also covered the join the paper! and I covered one of the larger scallops with patterned paper and glued it to the inside top of the box.

I made two books using the Pocket Notebook Die. I cut my papers separately as I didn't have any big pieces left! I have used another of the scallop cuts to add a little interest to the front of the book.

I always like to add a little ribbon to the spine of the book.

More pieceing on the back cover so this little sentiment strip came in handy!

This was the second book which I kept quite simple just making a small collage on the front.

If you are still with me well done and I hope this gives you some ideas for using some of Eileen's dies in different ways.

Thank you for joining me and happy crafting!

Jennie x

The Dies I have used are:

Eileen Hull Gift Box with Scallop Edges (Sissix 664345)

Eileen Hull Pocket Notebook (Sissix 663638)

Eileen Hull Stamp and Photo Storage (Sissix 662359)

You can see the flower tutorial by clicking the link HERE: