Karen Burniston Designer Challenge -- Christmas Tree

It's time for the November Karen Burniston Designer's Challenge.  This month the DT is all about Christmas trees.  One of the hardest parts of this challenge was choosing which die I wanted to use.  My answer was to use LOTS OF THEM.  

The front of my card features the largest tree from the Christmas Trees Pop Stand die.  Because I was going to use it flat, I added a couple of strips of Scotch tape to the back of the tree before removing the cardstock from the die.  I decorated it with some of the smaller dies in the set -- the star and the garlands -- as well as a few small colored pearls.  The wreath on the wall is from the Sleigh Pop-Up.

But it's on the inside where the magic lies.  I have lots and lots of Christmas paper in my stash.  I thought this paper with the small Christmas lights would be perfect for the exploding sides of the Explosion Pop-Up.

What's a Christmas tree without presents under it?  I placed some under the tree using a die from the old, retired Holiday Charms set.  And on the wall I put three more wreaths and added the Merry Christmas phrase at the bottom.  My card was complete!

A nice feature of the Explosion Pop Up is that it gives you a couple of choices on how to place your popped-up element.  There are two "stages" from which to choose.  As you can see from the photo, I used the lower one because of the size of my card.  Had the card been taller, I might have chosen to place the tree on the smaller, upper one.

Thought I'd mention that this card was not my first choice for my entry into this month's challenge.  The card I originally made was a rather non-traditional one, which I am going to give to my daughter, who loves everything beach related.  We live in Florida -- with lots of palm trees!  I wasn't sure everyone would appreciate my humor, but I thought I would share the card with you today anyway!

I'm excited to see how the rest of the design team handled this month's challenge!