Karen Burniston Designer Challenge - First 100 Dies

Happy New Year and welcome to the first Karen Burniston Designer Challenge.  This month's challenge is "The First 100 Dies."  We were to use any of Karen's dies from #1001 through #1100.  It was fun using some of the dies we may have not used for some time.  This is my card.   The dies used on the front of my card are #1030 Happy Birthday and the balloons from #1069 Explosion Pop-up.  I added some accents to the "Happy Birthday" and the heart balloons using a white gel pen.

The inside of my card uses quite a few of those "oldies but goodies:"#1004 Birthday Charms, #1023 Tag Book Pop-up, #1050 Sweet Treat Charms, #1055 Ovals Crosshatch, and #1090 Border Blends - Argyle.

It was fun pulling out some of the dies I haven't used in a while.  Sometimes you get so busy using the newer dies that you forget about some of the previously released ones.  This challenge gave us that opportunity.  I'm glad you stopped by my blog and hope you will remember some of those older dies you haven't used lately.

Karen Burniston New Release -- Day 7

For my final sneak peek of this new release, I made another birthday card.  I have a long-time friend (since junior high school -- many, many years ago), who has a birthday this year.  We are both now octogenarians (I told you we were long-time friends).  I'm sending this card to her.

I used the new Big Birthday Charms in conjunction with the Happy Birthday with Shadow and Crosshatch Rectangles on the front.

Inside are some more of the Big Birthday Charms mounted on the Oval Pop-Up set.  I added a row of the new Border Blends - Trim and some additional balloons from the Explosion Pop-Up in the background.

Make sure you stop back tomorrow for the Blog Hop.  If you follow the hop and comment often, you might just win a $25 gift certificate to the Karen Burniston website.  Each one of the team is giving away a certificate!

Karen Burniston Designer Challenge - Two Folds

It's time again for the Karen Burniston Designer Challenge.  This month the challenge was to make a card with two folds.   This could be a side gatefold, a top gatefold, a side fold with an extra card inside, a z-fold, a double easel, etc. Any theme!

My daughter asked me to make a card for her to give to her friend who was turning 50. I decided that this would be the perfect time to make my designer challenge card. I made a gatefold card with a Surprise Ball Pop-Up on the inside. The balloons on the belly band are from the Explosion Pop-Up die set.

I even made an envelope to match.

When you slip off the belly band, up pops some birthday balloons mounted to the Surprise Ball Pop-Up. The "billboard" was made with the Circles - Crosshatch dies.

Here's a little video showing the action.

BTW, my daughter's friend loved the card! Thanks for stopping by my blog today.

Karen Burniston Designer Challenge -- Congrats

The Karen Burniston Designer Challenge for May is CONGRATS!   It could be graduation or any other congratulations card.  I must admit that I'm rather fond of the Woven Basket Pop-Up die from the latest KB release.  I think it's my favorite; and when Karen did the video on how to make it a double-wide basket, I was hopelessly addicted.  My congrats card would be for a new baby girl, not that I know of anyone having a baby -- girl or otherwise.

I had so much fun making this card.  In addition to the Woven Basket Pop-Up, I also used dies from the Baby Charms, Spring Animals, Explosion Pop-Up, Word Set 8 - Congrats, and Ovals - Crosshatch.

Many of the charm dies were attached with strips of clear acetate.  That helped give some height to the card.

As you can see, I decided I didn't want a monochromatic look to my basket card, so I added a bit of yellow in the form of the balloons, some of the flowers and the little rubber ducky.

And I just had to tuck that cute bunny from the Spring Animals in there among the flowers.

Now I'll just have to wait until someone I know has a baby girl!

Karen Burniston DT Challenge -- Love, Sweet Love!

Valentine's Day is right around the corner, and the Karen Burniston Design Team Challenge this month is all about love -- Love, Sweet Love.  Of course, there's a bit of a twist involved.  We had to include some chocolate on our cards.  Who doesn't love chocolate?

I must admit that I have a favorite die from January's release -- the Woven Basket Pop-Up.  I used it, as well as some of the dies from the new Ice Cream Sundae dies for my card.

Ice cream is one of my downfalls, which is why I don't buy it for my freezer very often.  But this ice cream has no calories whatsoever!  I used a couple of sweet sentiments from My Favorite Things to convey my message of Love, Sweet Love.  And there's lots of chocolate on this card as well -- mainly the fudge sauce, but there's also a scoop of chocolate ice cream back there in the sundae.

The "love you" on the front is from Word Set 9 - Love, and the heart at the back is a punch.  I used some small hearts from the Karen Burniston Heart Pivot Panel die and the balloon strings from the Explosion Pop-Up.

One thing I love about this Woven Basket is that it folds flat for mailing.

I hope you like this calorie-free ice cream delight!

Happy 70th Birthday

I have a friend celebrating her 70th birthday this week, and I wanted to make a special card to commemorate the occasion.  I thought the Karen Burniston Explosion Pop-Up would be perfect.  I pretty much copied the card Karen used in her video demonstrating this die, adding the 70 on the inside.  I used lots of bright colors and balloons.

The borders on both the inside and the outside are from one of the new Border Blends dies, and the circles are the Crosshatch Circles dies.

I hope she likes this card.

Designer Challenge - "NEW"

Today's Karen Burniston Designer Challenge is entitled "NEW."  We were to try something new to us -- new technique, new color scheme, new style.  What kind of card would be perfect for this challenge on this day?  A Happy New Year card, of course!  I incorporated several other "new" things besides "happy new year" -- a new technique I had seen Karen do (a double spinner card) as well as some new fireworks stamps (first time I've used them).

In case you haven't seen Karen's video on how to create this double spinner, here is a link to her YouTube video.  This is a close-up of my double spinner mechanism.

As you can see, the upper spinner mechanism is a trimmed-down version of the original spinner mechanism.

A fun element on this card is the pouring champagne, which was made with a small piece of embroidery floss.  

In addition to the Spinner Square Pop-Up die, my card included pennants from the Twist Panel Pop-Up set and balloons from the Explosion Pop-Up set.