October Karen Burniston Designer Challenge

Karen Burniston just had a special new release of five new sentiment stamps -- just in time for the October Designer Challenge, the theme of which is "Peek-a-Boo."  When she released the Arch Pop-up several months ago, she said she thought it would make a cool monster.  So I took her up on her challenge by making a monster and including a couple of the new stamps from the set Halloween Phrases. The front just has the Happy Halloween w/Shadow set and one of the Border Blends.

But the inside has lots of dies -- the Arch Pop-up for the body of the monster, the pennants from the Graduation Elements, the bats from the Halloween Borders, the eyes from the Mini Ball Pop-up, the Boo from the Halloween Elements, and the rectangles from the Rectangles Crosshatch.  

And you can see that I met the challenge theme by having my monster saying "Boo" when you open the card.  

I was glad to accommodate Karen and her wish for an Arch Pop-up monster!

Karen Burniston Designer Challenge - Snowman

The theme of the Karen Burniston Designer Challenge this month is "Snowman."  I've lived in Florida for over 50 years and haven't made a real snowman in many, many years.  But Karen has several die sets that give me an opportunity to make a paper snowman at least.  I pulled out several previously released dies for my card -- the Snowman Pop-Up being the main one, along with the Christmas Tree Pop-Up.  That said, the snowman on the front was actually made with circle dies approximately the same size as the Snowman Pop-Up.  I used the smallest plain circle from Crosshatch Circles for the head and one of the dies from the Circle Tag Book for the body.  I did bring in smaller dies from the Snowman Pop-Up for the rest of him -- his hat, features, scarf, and arms.  The tree is the one of the larger tree dies from the Christmas Tree Pop-Up.

To accommodate both the snowman and the tree, my card is 5" x 8".  Because of where the tree needed to be placed, I balanced out the layout with the snowflake die from Long Nature's Edges 2.  There was not enough room for the arms or boots that come with that die set.

It's hard to see in the photos, but both of those white rectangles are embossed with snowflakes.  I used the Crosshatch Rectangles for the small panel on which you can write your name. 

Be sure to check out the cards made by the rest of the Karen Burniston Design Team for this challenge.  

Riley & Company STAMPtember Collaboration

Riley & Company is again collaborating with Simon Says Stamps for STAMPtember.  The stamp set is called It's Your Day.  Members of the Karen Burniston Design Team have made some fun cards using this stamp set.

I've made two cards with this set along with some Karen Burniston dies.  The first one is a birthday card with lots of balloons.

On the inside are more balloons and the Karen Burniston Cake Pop-Up set, along with the Happy Birthday w/Shadow dies and Crosshatch Rectangle set.

My second card is a get-well card using the Landscape Rectangle Accordion die, some pretty plaid paper, and the Get Well Charms.

STAMPtember is always a lot of fun.  Some of the other Karen Burniston Design Team members have mae cards using this set as well.  I'm sure you can find them on the Karen Burniston Pop-Up Peeps page on Facebook.

Beach Days

One of the new Karen Burniston dies is the Purse Pop-Up, and  I've created several cards using this die.  Did you ever wake up in the middle of the night, can't go back to sleep, and a card design pops into your head?  I'm sure we've all done that.  My card today is the result of one such middle-of-the-night occasion.  I thought the purse would make a cute beach bag.  So, using several other KB dies (Beach Charms, Tiny Accessories, Crosshatch Rectangles, Natures Edges, Border Blends and Tropical Scene), I created this card.

I'm still trying to think of more ways to use this cute Purse Pop-Up.

C4C552 - Stripes

This week the Crazy4Challenge team members are creating cards that include stipes.  We could create our own striped background by using paper scraps, striped stamps, or patterned paper.  As I have a ton of patterned paper, I went that route.  I also used several brand-new Karen Burniston dies.  The front is a tree from the Landscape Scene . . .

. . . and the inside shows off the Flip Frame Pop-Up, along with some Backyard Charms.

Check out the Crazy4Challenges blog to see how the rest of the team handled this striped challenge.

It's Karen Burniston's Birthday!

It's Karen Burniston's birthday, and the design team has decided to share the fun with everyone with a Birthday Blog Hop.

I have been having so much fun creating slimline cards and seeing how I can incorporate the various Karen Burniston dies into them.  For my birthday card I used the Circle Charm Pop-Up, some Wine Charms, and one of my favorite colors -- PURPLE.

We all have piles of 12 x 12 patterned paper, I am sure.  It is the perfect size to use on a slimline card because you can get three panels out of one sheet of paper -- one for the front and two for the inside.

The image on the front is from an old stamp set I had, but the inside circles have die cuts from the Wine Charms die set.  I hung the champagne glass from the center circle with a jump ring and glued down the wine bottle and wine glass to the third circle.    I added two panels I had cut using the Crosshatch Rectangles, putting Happy Birthday on one, and a champagne bottle on the other.  There is plenty of room to write a birthday message on that one!  I added some Glossy Accents to the glasses and the wine bottles and scattered some enamel dots throughout.

I had another piece of that same patterned paper, so I lined the envelope to make the perfect set!

Be sure to check out the rest of the blog hop and see how the other members of the design team are wishing Karen Burniston a very happy birthday.

Frances
Kelly
Karen A
Fran
Sandy
Lois (that's me)

Back to Space!

Hopefully, today is the day that astronauts will again be blasted into space from U.S. soil!  If the weather is cooperative, two astronauts will leave Cape Kennedy in a Space X rocket on the way to the International Space Station.  In honor of this event, I made a card using the Karen Burniston Rocket Pop-Up die and Honey Bee Stamps' Far Out Friends stamp set.

I've been bitten by the slimline card bug and experimenting with some of Karen Burniston's dies.  I'm rather pleased with this one!

When you open the card, the rocket ship pops up out of the card.  Pretty cool, no?

Here's a short video showing the action.

Good luck to Robert Behnken and Douglas Hurley!

Gnomes and Paper Tole

I just received my first Riley & Company Mushroom Lane stamp and its accompanying die set.  I bought this so I could do some paper tole, which is always a lot of fun.  I decided that the front of the card shouldn't be too "busy," or it would take away from the inside.  So on the front I used the new Karen Burniston Tile Pattern Plate and a small little scene with a couple of the Mini Gnomes, also from Riley & Company.

I wanted the mushroom cottage to pop up, so I cut the pop-up mechanism from the Karen Burniston Tree Pop-Up twice in the grass section of the inside.  The navy blue and patterned papers on the inside are very light-weight because I didn't want much bulk.  After cutting the clouds across the top, I sponged on some white pigment ink and sprinkled detail white embossing powder over the ink.   I brushed some of the powder off to give it a lighter, sparing look.  Then I heat embossed it.

The die set has four different dies, allowing you to make several layers in your paper tole project.  As I didn't want the inside of my card to be too bulky, I have only two layers on the house.  I stamped the image twice, fussy cutting the entire image and then die-cutting the top mushroom.  I used small foam dots to attach the smaller piece to the larger mushroom.

I did add two foam dots to the gnome so that he would stand out from the mushroom.  You can see that the door and windows also are layered.

I didn't have any sentiments that would work for the inside of my card, so I created one on my computer.  I love dafont.com for unusual fonts.  I downloaded one called Alien Mushroom, which I thought would work well for the sentiment.  I printed it on white paper and mounted it in a similar manner as the little scene on the front -- with the Karen Burniston Crosshatch dies, matted in navy.

I hope to do a full-blown paper tole card with this cute Mushroom Lane house sometime in the future; but in the meantime, I got my fix on this cute little card.

Happy Easter Circle Charm

Today is Easter, and I have a happy little Easter card for you today.  I recently purchased the Karen Burniston Circle Charm Pop-Up die and used it, as well as several other KB die sets, to make this card.

Following the great video instructions Karen Burniston has on her website, I was able to construct this card with little or no trouble at all.  Yellow and purple always make a nice color combination for an Easter or spring card.   I cut the sentiment die with both colors and layered them.  Using several of the circle dies from the main die set, along with the Crosshatch Circles, I decorated the front.

The inside has the same purple gingham background, and the little chick rotated to the inside when the card is opened.  I used the butterfly which came with the Circle Charm Pop-Up, added the egg from the Easter charms along with the rabbit from the Spring Animals set.  The two rectangular panels were created with the Crosshatch Rectangle dies.   I've already sent this card to my sister (another Karen Burniston fan) and signed it on the right-hand rectangular panel.