Karen Burniston Designer Challenge - Just . . .

This month's Karen Burniston Designer Challenge is "Just . . . ,"  We were to create a card with a theme of "just . . . something."  This challenge is the perfect opportunity to use the brand-new word set -- Just Because.  

I'm wishing you a Happy Thanksgiving .  . . "just" a bit early.  I used the new set, along with the Landscape Rectangle Accordion (a new favorite of mine), Autumn Elements, Feathered Animals, and a few different word sets.  I did a bit of "word surgery" on the front.  Word Set 2 - Birthday has the word "wish" but not wishing.  So I cut the "ing" from "thinking" in Word Set 1 - Greetings and added it to the "wish to create my sentiment.

The inside of my card has all sorts of autumn/Thanksgiving images -- even a pumpkin pie!

A couple of close-up photos of the inside spread of my card gives you a better look at all the Thanksgiving elements.

C4C602 - Sketch Challenge

The sketch for the Crazy4Challenges for this month is a standard A2 layout.

However, I took a bit of artistic license and made a slimline card, adjusting the circles just a tad.

Be sure to check out the Crazy4Challenges blog to see how the rest of the team handled this sketch.

Karen Burniston Designer Challenge -- Autumn

It's Designer Challenge day for the Karen Burniston team.  This month's theme is Autumn, which leaves a lot of room for interpretation.  For my card I chose Thanksgiving and used the Rockin' Rectangle and lots of fall colors.  All of the images are from Autumn Elements, and the sentiment is from Word Set 7 - Autumn.

I added a bit of whimsey on the inside, with Bennie the Cow on the Rockin' Rectangle, some stamped harvest images from KB Riley and more words from Word Set 7.

Thanks for stopping by my blog today.  I hope you liked my card.

Fall Bake Sale

I made a Side Step Card today, using several of the new Autumn dies from CottageCutz.

To start my card, I cut cardstock as follows:

Wood plank cardstock - 8 1/2" x 5 1/2"
Cream cardstock pieces - 7/8" x 5 3/8", 2 7/8" x 3 1/4", 3 3/8" x 7/8", 3 3/8" x 2"
Orange plaid paper pieces - 3/4" x 5 1/4", 2 3/4" x 3 1/8", 3 1/4" x 3/4", 3 1/4" x 1 7/8"

A side step card is a relatively easy fun fold.  To show you how to cut and score, I made a little diagram.

After I cut and scored the wood plank cardstock piece, this is what it looked like.

I then glued the orange plaid pieces to the cream pieces and adhered them to the card base.

I then cut the Autumn Sweets and Pumpkin Pie and Latte dies from cream cardstock.

After coloring the pieces with Copic markers, using the packaging as a guide, I constructed each of the images.

I also cut the word "fall" from the Fall Phrases die and  rolling pin from the Bake Shop die and stamped the words "bake sale," using my old Snap Stamps.

I then adhered all the die-cut pieces to the card base, gluing the "fall" and rolling pin and using foam pop dots on the others . . .

. . . and my card was complete.

Here is a side view of the card.

CottageCutz dies used on this card are:

Enjoy Fall

CottageCutz has a brand-new release of Fall dies -- and they're all just marvelous!  I chose two of them for my card today -- Pumpkins and Vines as well as Fall Phrases.   I had seen a card made with a die-cut frame mounted on top of patterned paper and liked the way it looked, so I used basically the same idea on my card.

To make the frame I cut a piece of orange cardstock 3 3/4" x 4 3/4" and placed the largest of one of the straight-edged rectangle dies in the center.  You could use any rectangle die -- I just happened to have the Cross-Stitched ones, so that's what I used.  I can use the center (with the cross-stitches around the edge) for another card.

I then cut my card base . . .

Brown - 5 1/2" x 8 1/2", scored at 4 1/4"

Patterned paper - 4" x 5 1/4"

. . .  and constructed my card.

I then cut the Pumpkins and Vines die -- the pumpkins in orange and the vines in green.

Using a brown Copic marker I colored the pumpkin stem and sponged the pumpkins and vines with orange and green distressed ink.  A little hint:  because the pumpkins are slit, you can slip a piece of scrap paper into the slits to allow you to sponge the edges of each section separately.  It gives a bit of dimension to your pumpkins.

I cut the Fall Phrases die from orange cardstock, although I am only using two of the words,

which I sponged with a little bit of brown distress ink.

I then gathered all my die-cuts and placed them on the card.  I moved them around a bit until I was satisfied with the arrangement and then glued them down.  As you can see, I extended some of the leaves over the frame.

My card was now finished.

CottageCutz dies used on my card are:

Autumn Blessings

Yesterday one of the challenges on Splitcoaststampers was entitled "Textures of Fall."  I was inspired by that challenge to make my CottageCutz card for today.  It combines all kinds of textures and texture techniques -- embossing, layering, sponging.

I started my card with the Pine Cone Branch die. Originally, I was going to cut it from white cardstock and color the various elements; but I decided that I wanted a bit more "texture."  So I cut it from both green and tan cardstock.  I thought that building up the pine sprigs (the green onto the tan) would give some more depth to them.

I then sponged Ranger Pine Needle ink onto the green die-cut and Vintage Photo ink on the tan one.

Then I cut the pine sprigs off the green die cut and glued them to the tan one . . .

. . . and added the additional pinecones and pine sprigs.

Once the tedious part was complete, I cut my cardstock.  

Dark Gold - 5 1/2" x 8 1/2", scored at 4 1/4"

Cream - 4" x 5 1/4"

Scrap of Dark Gold large enough for the focal panel

I have a Darice embossing folder of fall foliage.  I took some Ranger Distress ink (Dried Marigold, Fired Brick, Rusty Hinge, Vintage Photo) and rubbed various parts of the embossing folder.

When I embossed the cream cardstock, the ink gave the embossing some nice fall coloring, and then I cut the focal panel with the largest Rounded Rectangle die.

I constructed my card base, using Scor-Tape to hold down the embossed panel and large foam pop dots to add the rectangle.  I had stamped the word "Autumn" in the Pine Needle ink at the lower right-hand corner of the dark gold panel and die-cut the word "blessings" using one of the Expressions Plus dies.

I then added my constructed pine bough, and my card was finished.

CottageCutz dies used on this card are:

Don't forget that CottageCutz has lots of new Halloween and Christmas dies on their website.  Be sure to check them out!