Kelly winds up her month as hostess for the CCEE Stampers by telling us that May is Healthy Vision Month. She said to show our cards with glasses, eye charts, any kind of eyeballs as the focal point.
I'm hoping the eyes on my owl are enough for this challenge.
Be sure to check out the CCEE Stampers blog for some more vision-ary cards.
Kelly reminded the CCEE Stampers that National Dance Like a Chicken Day was this week, and it encourages everyone to dance like a chicken. I always chuckle when I think of that "holiday." She asked us to create a card with a chicken or chickens as the star! Dancing was optional.
I actually have a stamp of a chicken dancing -- it's an old one that I think I got free somewhere.
Be sure to check out the CCEE Stampers blog for some more chickens -- dancing or otherwise!
Hi Crafty Friends,
My final sneak peek of the new Karen Burniston dies is another Landscape Rectangle Accordion card with two panels -- one with a sentiment created with the Mini Alphabet and Numbers set and the other with a couple of butterflies from the Flutter Charms.
Today's sneak peek is a simple little mini slimline card made using the new Short Rectangles Crosshatch set, which has six nested rectangular dies and a strip of flowers. I used the two larger dies on this card, as well as a couple of dies from the Hearts Crosshatch set and the Sending Love set.
I have another Landscape Rectangle Accordion card to show you today, but this time it has three panels. This one shows off the picture frames that come with the die set as well the bee and honeycomb dies from the new Flutter Charms set.
I added a few flowers from the Flutter Charms set as well as a couple of cute bee stamps. The sentiment on the middle panel was created using the Mini Alphabet and Numbers set.
Today is National Foam Roller Day, and Kelly asked the CCEE Stampers to show our cards using any rolled technique! Suggestions were paper rolling, brayers, marbles. As it is also Sneak Peek Week for the new Karen Burniston dies, I made a card using some new dies -- plus a brayer technique I have never used before: wrapping rubber bands around a brayer in order to make a unique background.
The new dies that I used are the Short Rectangles Crosshatch and Flutter Charms. And I'm rather pleased with that background.
Be sure to visit the CCEE Stampers blog to see what the rest of the team did with this challenge and check out the new Karen Burniston dies as well.
Many of us love Karen Burniston's pop-up balls, and I'm thinking the new Mini Ball Pop-Up will be quite popular as well. My card for today uses this one, which is 20% smaller than the Bitty Ball. Another new die is the Long Flap Closure, which is perfect for a slimline card -- and has notches for cutting it down to the mini-slimline size.
I look forward to using this Mini Ball Pop-Up in conjunction with the other two pop-up ball die sets as well.
This month's Karen Burniston Designer Challenge has such a fun theme -- Ball and Small. We were to create a ball animal and pair it with the same critter from our animal sets. However, I had a bit of a detour for my card. The first time I read our list of challenges, I didn't pay close enough attention to the list and made an Easter card with a little Easter scene (Easter bunny with basket) on the front and a pop-up bunny on the inside. Then I realized this challenge was for May, not April -- much too late for an Easter card. So then I made second card with a couple of honey bees inside and out. But Karen Aiken had already made (and showed it to the team) a card with bees. Not wanting similar cards from two members of the team for this challenge, I made a third one. Karen Burniston had suggested an astronaut, paired with the Space Charms (even though these are not technically "critters").
So the third time was the charm. Here is my designer challenge card for Ball and Small. On the front is that little astronaut from Space Charms and the rocket ship from the Rocket Pop-Up set.
The inside was a bit more challenging. His head is made with the new Mini Ball Pop-Up and the helmet is made with the Bitty Ball (obviously with no rubber bands). I used parts of the Character Add-ons 2 (Santa & Mrs. Claus) to decorate him. The sentiment was created using the new Mini Alphabet and Numbers set.
Here is a close-up of the astronaut so you can see a bit better how it was constructed.
I cut the helmet from white cardstock and cut off three of the panels from each section, leaving just a small strip on each. Then I cut the panel again from a piece of acetate and separated each panel. After snipping the connecting sections in half (to make them narrower so as not to get caught up with the head), I connected the white sections of the helmet together. Then I wrapped the helmet around the head and glued on the bottom panel to the head. I stacked four adhesive foam squares together, coloring the sides with a dark brown Copic marker, and placed it on the top of his head under the helmet. This way when the card is opened, the helmet will sit slightly above his head, thereby pulling in the sections a little bit. There are still gaps in the "viser" section of the helmet, but not as much as would have been there without the elevating foam squares. I then adhered the acetate sections to the small strips left on the helmet sections and put them together using 1/8" Scor-Tape.
This was a triple challenge for me, but I think it was eventually worth the trouble. Thanks for stopping by.
The new Karen Burniston dies are right around the corner. The design team has been working diligently, having so much fun creating with them. I think Karen's accordion dies are what drew me to her products initially, so I was so happy to see this new Landscape Rectangle Accordion, which makes a mini-slimline card. My first sneak peek for you is a birthday card made with this set. The front of the card is a cute little marsh scene with several dies from Bayou Animals. The flowers forming the frame are actually from another new set -- Short Rectangles Crosshatch.
This new die set includes several small frames with which you can decorate your card. I'm so excited about this new release and hope you will be as well.
Kelly starts her month as hostess for the CCEE Stampers by telling us that yesterday was Dandelion Day. So she asked us to show our best dandelion cards (or we could use any flower as an alternative).
I have ONE set of stamps with a dandelion, and it's an old MFP Stamp Shop set. I created a background by blending some distress oxide inks and then stamped the dandelion in black. It's a relatively simple card, but I think the black against the blended background is quite dramatic.
Check out the CCEE Stampers blog to see how the rest of the team handled this dandy challenge.
I recently participated in an on-line card class, and one of the cards we made was a split easel card. I thought I would make another one for our May "More than One Score" challenge. A split easel card is basically the same as a regular easel card, except that the "easel" does not go all the way across the base.
