Karen Burniston New Release Sneak Peek - Day 5

The Stage Pop-up is one of my favorite dies, and one of the new dies in this release is an add-on.  It's the Tool Time Stage Add-ons.

My late husband was an auto mechanic, and the colors of his Craftsman Tool Box were red, black, and silver.  So they are the colors I used on my card.  One of the new stamp sets is tool-related, and I used one on the front and two on the inside.

I loved the card Karen made with the removable stage on the inside.  I used that technique on my card as well.

The tools in this set are the same tools from the Tool Charms -- just mirror images.   When you glue them together, the tools look good from the front or the back.

This set is perfect for those masculine cards we sometimes have trouble with.

Karen Burniston New Release Sneak Peek - Day 4

The new Gazebo Add-on was a great idea.  You could decorate it for lots of holidays.  Here is my version of a Halloween Gazebo, complete with skeletons, ghosts, and bats.

The acetate strips holding the flying bats are anchored between the two halves of the Stage Pop-up and go up through the roof.

 

Karen Burniston New Release Sneak Peeks - Day 3

After I made yesterday's Cascade Pop-up card, I decided to expand it just a little bit.  If you make your card a little bigger (my card today is 5" x 7"), you can get two cascading elements on it.  Here is my expanded Poinsettia card.  A favorite of mine is the Pine Cone set from an earlier release.

You have a bit more room inside of a 5" x 7" card than you do in an A2 card.  I experimented a little bit to see how two cascading elements would look.  I put poinsettias on the upper cascade and pine boughs and pinecones on the lower one. 

As I was opening and closing the card, the pine boughs were getting in each others' way, so I put some acetate behind each layer of pine boughs.  That solved my problem.

This is such a fun release.  I hope you stop back tomorrow to see another sneak peek.

Karen Burniston New Release Sneak Peek - Day 2

This new release from Karen Burniston includes some really cute dies.   Today I'm using the new Cascade Pop-up.

I make Christmas cards all year long so that I'm not rushed come December.  The Cascade Pop-up lent itself well to the Poinsettia die.  I decided that I wanted to have my poinsettias something other than the normal RED, so I googled "poinsettia" and found some interesting versions.  I decided on this pink and white variety.

As you can see, the poinsettias fit very nicely on the cascading layers.  I used a few sprigs of pine from the Pine Cone set for accent.

Stop back tomorrow for another sneak peek.

Karen Burniston Sneak Peek - Day 1

I always love it when I get to show some sneak peeks of a new Karen Burniston release.  We've got 10 new dies and 5 new stamp sets being released next week, and I've got a sneak peek of one of them for you today.  It's an add-on for the Stage Pop-up, which is one of my favorites of Karen's dies.  The add-on makes a Gazebo.

When my daughter got married 36 years ago, we held the wedding in one of the gazebos in our development.  When I saw the Gazebo Stage Add-on, I knew I had to make a wedding card.

Also included in this release is a Little Bench Pop-up, similar to Karen's Garden Bench Pop-up (but smaller).  If you look closely, you can see that little bench behind the bride and groom.  All those vines are included in the Little Bench Pop-up set.

I know I'm going to have fun using this new add-on die, as well as all the new dies in this release.  They will be available on Karen's website next week (July 23rd).

Karen Burniston Designer Challenge -- Box or Blocks

This month's Karen Burniston Designer Challenge had an interesting theme -- "box or blocks."  As Karen wrote in her challenge to us: "Is this a cardboard box? Baby blocks? A toolbox? A toy box? Minecraft? You decide!" I hadn't made an Explosion Box in quite a while, so that's the direction I went. A few weeks ago my daughter asked me to make a wedding card for her, so I decided I would combine the two ideas and came up with a Wedding Explosion Box. I decorated the outside of the box with dies from the Wedding Charms (the "Best Wishes") and the Cake Trims (the hearts).

 

Remove the lid and the sides fall down, leaving another box within.

Karen recently brought back the Gift Card Label, and I thought that would be a nice addition -- giving a convenient place for a gift card. When you remove the gift card, there is a nice little sentiment remaining in place.

Removing the second lid reveals a wedding cake with the bride and groom atop it.

Sitting atop the wedding cake are the bride and groom.

I usually put a lid on each section of the box, but the height of the bride and groom did not allow that.

I hope my daughter's friend enjoys this little gift.

Karen Burniston Designer Challenge for June

The theme of the June Karen Burniston Designer Challenge is "Flag Colors."  We were to use the colors of our country's flag on our cards.  

I'm still obsessed with the Stage Pop-up, so I actually made two cards using the red/white/blue colors of the American flag.  For the first one, in addition to the Stage Pop-up, I also used Karen's Hot Air Balloons and Fireworks as well as a patriotic sticker.   Some time ago I had made six patchwork balloons following Karen's directions, so I used two of them on this card -- one on the front . . . 

, , , and one on the back.   I added some fireworks to the center panel on this side.

My second card also includes the Stage Pop-up with some Scrappy Boy stamps from their Spirit of 1776 set.   I wanted to use some fireworks on the acetate background, so I tried a little experiment.  I put down some red and blue Copic circles on both sides of a piece of white cardstock.  I cut the circles and attached them to some wide double-sided tape.  When I cut out the fireworks dies, I was able to glue the fireworks to the acetate panel between the two "stages" with colors on both sides without having to cut them twice and trying to line them up.

I really enjoyed this month's challenge.  It enabled me to make several 4th of July cards for next month.