Karen Burniston Designer Challenge -- Fall Colors

 A new month, a new Designer Challenge.  This month's theme is quite appropriate for November -- "Fall Colors."  And my card is a Thanksgiving card.

The front is relatively simple, with paper that I've had in my stash for years.

And I used a die set I haven't used in a little while -- The Lorna Label Pop-up and that cute little turkey from Feathered Animals.  The sentiments on the inside are from Karen's Fall Phrases stamp set.  The piece of pie on the sentiment panel is from Dessert Elements.  

I hope you have a wonderful Thanksgiving.

October Karen Burniston Designer Challenge

The theme for this month's Karen Burniston Designer Challenge is "Hey, Pumpkin."  As it turns out, I had the perfect paper for my card.  It was part of a Graphic 45 paper pack I bought for a Karen Burniston on-line class, The front of the card actually says, "Hey, Pumpkin."

I hadn't used any of the Ball Pop-ups (Surprise, Mini, Bitty) for a while, so I pulled out the Mini Ball Pop-up and made a Jack-o-Lantern for the inside of the card.  It's difficult to see, but I added some Wink of Stella on the Jack-o-Lantern's facial features.

As you may be able to tell from this video, the card is held closed using magnets on the fold-over piece.  Using glue dots, I attached two magnets under the patterned paper on the back panel and two magnets under the patterned paper on the narrow fold-over panel.

This was a very fun card to make.

Karen Burniston September Designer Challenge

The theme of this month's Karen Burniston Designer Challenge is "CASCADE."  We were to use the new Cascade Pop-up on our card.  I confess that I was not an immediate fan of the Cascade Pop-up.  However, after using it on several cards, I found that I really like it and its clever mechanism.

My card is based on the movie The Wizard of Oz.  I found a piece of free clip art for the front, on which I mounted my Happy Birthday sentiment.

On the inside I placed several of the Movie Night Charms on the cascading circles and put images from Kindred Stamps on the filmstrip.  To make the images fit within the panels of the filmstrip, I first stamped and colored each character.  I then took a photo of the colored images and sized them in Print Shop to fit the openings.  The sentiment on the inside is from the Movie Night clear stamp set.

The back of the card is the end of the movie with a hint to the theme song -- Somewhere Over the Rainbow.  The rainbow was the last of six rainbows I made using the Arch Pop-up some time ago.

Thanks for stopping by my blog today.  This was definitely a fun challenge this month.

Karen Burniston Designer Challenge

It's time again for the Karen Burniston Designer Challenge.  This month's theme is "Mealtime," and two of the new dies for July were perfect.  I've been having very much fun with Mealtime Elements and Dessert Elements over the past month, and my card for the challenge uses both of them.

I had seen a card made by another Design Team member (Sue Small-Kreider) on which she made a whole pie out of the slice of pie die in Dessert Elements, and I wondered how it would look as a pizza.  Going with that idea, I made my card look like an Italian dinner.  I used the colors of the Italian flag (green/white/red) as the color choices on my card.  I haven't used the Circle Charm Pop-up in a while, so I pulled it out and made it the base of my card.

On the front there is a lead-in -- what is an Italian meal without a glass of wine?

Opening up the card there's a plate of spaghetti and meatballs and a pizza.  I added some pepperoni to the pizza with a darker red Copic marker.  Because of the size of the plates, you can't see much of the red & white checked tablecloth on those two panels.  When normally making the Circle Charm Pop-up, the center circle is just a ring on which a charm would hang; but I covered the ring with a full circle panel to accommodate the plate of spaghetti.

The sentiments on both the front and inside of my card are part of the new Mealtime Phrases clear stamp set, part of the new July release.

Thanks for stopping by my blog today.  You'll probably see more food-related cards from me in the future.  I just love those two new die sets.

Karen Burniston July New Release Blog Hop

Hi Crafty Friends,

Welcome to our Karen Burniston Products - KB Riley LLC July Release Blog Hop. The Design Team have come together with Karen today for a fun blog hop to celebrate the release of 10 new dies and 5 new stamp sets. Sneak peeks of the new release started last week, and the dies are available to order NOW!

This release includes:
• 3 new Pop-up Die Sets
• 4 new Add-ons Die Sets
• 2 new Elements Die Sets
• 1 new Paper People Die Set
• 5 new Clear Sentiment Stamp Sets

The two Element die sets in this release are food-related -- Mealtime Elements and Dessert Elements.  I combined these two sets in an accordion menu, using the Fancy Label Accordion.

Breakfast choices are a waffle or bacon and eggs.

Lunch choices include a sandwich, healthy broccoli and orange slices, or maybe some chocolate chip cookies.

For dinner you could choose spaghetti and meatballs or broiled chicken, mashed potatoes and broccoli.

And don't forget dessert!  We've got donuts, cinnamon rolls, and pumpkin pie.

GIVEAWAY:

To celebrate the release Karen Burniston and each of the Karen Burniston - KB Riley LLC Design Team members will be giving away a $25 Gift Certificate to some lucky person who comments on our blog posts, so make sure you join the hop and comment on everyone's blog post. Winners will be randomly chosen from ALL of the blog hop comments received on our blog posts by Thursday 30th July. Lots of chances to win some goodies, so just leave a comment on this post or any other blog hop posts to enter! 

Don't forget to leave some way for us to contact you, in case you are a lucky winner!

Karen Burniston

Lois Bak (that's me)

Sue Small-Kreider

Frances Byrne

Jennifer Webster

Suzanne Smit

Nicky Foden

Sandy Diller

Karen Burniston New Release Sneak Peek - Day 6

I've shown two Christmas cards made with the Cascade Pop-up (along with the Poinsettia die), but today I've got a Thanksgiving card made with the Cascade Pop-up (along with the Autumn Elements and Feathered Animals sets).  This is a 5 1/2" square card.

The arrangement on each of the cascading circles is pretty much duplicated in the lower left-hand corner of the card.  I just love those little acorns!

Don't forget to check out the blog hop on Thursday. 

Karen Burniston New Release Sneak Peek - Day 5

The Stage Pop-up is one of my favorite dies, and one of the new dies in this release is an add-on.  It's the Tool Time Stage Add-ons.

My late husband was an auto mechanic, and the colors of his Craftsman Tool Box were red, black, and silver.  So they are the colors I used on my card.  One of the new stamp sets is tool-related, and I used one on the front and two on the inside.

I loved the card Karen made with the removable stage on the inside.  I used that technique on my card as well.

The tools in this set are the same tools from the Tool Charms -- just mirror images.   When you glue them together, the tools look good from the front or the back.

This set is perfect for those masculine cards we sometimes have trouble with.

Karen Burniston New Release Sneak Peek - Day 4

The new Gazebo Add-on was a great idea.  You could decorate it for lots of holidays.  Here is my version of a Halloween Gazebo, complete with skeletons, ghosts, and bats.

The acetate strips holding the flying bats are anchored between the two halves of the Stage Pop-up and go up through the roof.

 

Karen Burniston New Release Sneak Peeks - Day 3

After I made yesterday's Cascade Pop-up card, I decided to expand it just a little bit.  If you make your card a little bigger (my card today is 5" x 7"), you can get two cascading elements on it.  Here is my expanded Poinsettia card.  A favorite of mine is the Pine Cone set from an earlier release.

You have a bit more room inside of a 5" x 7" card than you do in an A2 card.  I experimented a little bit to see how two cascading elements would look.  I put poinsettias on the upper cascade and pine boughs and pinecones on the lower one. 

As I was opening and closing the card, the pine boughs were getting in each others' way, so I put some acetate behind each layer of pine boughs.  That solved my problem.

This is such a fun release.  I hope you stop back tomorrow to see another sneak peek.

Karen Burniston New Release Sneak Peek - Day 2

This new release from Karen Burniston includes some really cute dies.   Today I'm using the new Cascade Pop-up.

I make Christmas cards all year long so that I'm not rushed come December.  The Cascade Pop-up lent itself well to the Poinsettia die.  I decided that I wanted to have my poinsettias something other than the normal RED, so I googled "poinsettia" and found some interesting versions.  I decided on this pink and white variety.

As you can see, the poinsettias fit very nicely on the cascading layers.  I used a few sprigs of pine from the Pine Cone set for accent.

Stop back tomorrow for another sneak peek.

Karen Burniston Sneak Peek - Day 1

I always love it when I get to show some sneak peeks of a new Karen Burniston release.  We've got 10 new dies and 5 new stamp sets being released next week, and I've got a sneak peek of one of them for you today.  It's an add-on for the Stage Pop-up, which is one of my favorites of Karen's dies.  The add-on makes a Gazebo.

When my daughter got married 36 years ago, we held the wedding in one of the gazebos in our development.  When I saw the Gazebo Stage Add-on, I knew I had to make a wedding card.

Also included in this release is a Little Bench Pop-up, similar to Karen's Garden Bench Pop-up (but smaller).  If you look closely, you can see that little bench behind the bride and groom.  All those vines are included in the Little Bench Pop-up set.

I know I'm going to have fun using this new add-on die, as well as all the new dies in this release.  They will be available on Karen's website next week (July 23rd).

Karen Burniston Designer Challenge -- Box or Blocks

This month's Karen Burniston Designer Challenge had an interesting theme -- "box or blocks."  As Karen wrote in her challenge to us: "Is this a cardboard box? Baby blocks? A toolbox? A toy box? Minecraft? You decide!" I hadn't made an Explosion Box in quite a while, so that's the direction I went. A few weeks ago my daughter asked me to make a wedding card for her, so I decided I would combine the two ideas and came up with a Wedding Explosion Box. I decorated the outside of the box with dies from the Wedding Charms (the "Best Wishes") and the Cake Trims (the hearts).

 

Remove the lid and the sides fall down, leaving another box within.

Karen recently brought back the Gift Card Label, and I thought that would be a nice addition -- giving a convenient place for a gift card. When you remove the gift card, there is a nice little sentiment remaining in place.

Removing the second lid reveals a wedding cake with the bride and groom atop it.

Sitting atop the wedding cake are the bride and groom.

I usually put a lid on each section of the box, but the height of the bride and groom did not allow that.

I hope my daughter's friend enjoys this little gift.

Karen Burniston Designer Challenge for June

The theme of the June Karen Burniston Designer Challenge is "Flag Colors."  We were to use the colors of our country's flag on our cards.  

I'm still obsessed with the Stage Pop-up, so I actually made two cards using the red/white/blue colors of the American flag.  For the first one, in addition to the Stage Pop-up, I also used Karen's Hot Air Balloons and Fireworks as well as a patriotic sticker.   Some time ago I had made six patchwork balloons following Karen's directions, so I used two of them on this card -- one on the front . . . 

, , , and one on the back.   I added some fireworks to the center panel on this side.

My second card also includes the Stage Pop-up with some Scrappy Boy stamps from their Spirit of 1776 set.   I wanted to use some fireworks on the acetate background, so I tried a little experiment.  I put down some red and blue Copic circles on both sides of a piece of white cardstock.  I cut the circles and attached them to some wide double-sided tape.  When I cut out the fireworks dies, I was able to glue the fireworks to the acetate panel between the two "stages" with colors on both sides without having to cut them twice and trying to line them up.

I really enjoyed this month's challenge.  It enabled me to make several 4th of July cards for next month.

Stage Pop-up with Piano Keys

An idea popped into my head this morning, but I wasn't quite sure how to run with it.  My new favorite Karen Burniston set is the Stage Pop-up, and I was trying to think of another set that might work with it.  I thought maybe the Piano Keys Pop-up might work, so I gave it a try.

I was making this up as I went along, but I'm not totally unhappy with the way it turned out.  Fortunately, I had just purchased some musical patterned paper from Creek Bank Creations, and it worked perfectly with my idea.  I had to cut down the piano keys to fit the size of the Stage.  As I was constructing my card, I forgot that the keys would actually be higher and the stage; but it doesn't look too bad.  The center panel was cut using the Ovals Crosshatch dies.

I used a few dies from the Music Charms on the back of the card.  I had a friend who unfortunately died several years ago, but her favorite color combination was red/black/white.  I have come to like that combination myself.

All in all, I'd say this card didn't disappoint me.  It's always fun to stretch your imagination.

Karen Burniston Designer Challenge -- Caffeinate

It's time again for the Karen Burniston Designer Challenge.  This month's theme is "Caffeinate," using something to get you going -- chocolate, coffee, tea, soda.  Even though it's May and quite warm here in Florida, I chose hot chocolate for my card.

Shortly after the Rockin' Rectangle was released, Karen Burniston made a card using that die with a clear acetate front.  I loved the way it looked and have made several cards using that technique.  My card today also uses it.

 

In addition to the Rockin' Rectangle, I also used the mug from the Tea and Coffee Pop-up, the Tea and Coffee Borders, the Coffee Charms, and the icing from the Cupcake Pop-up.  And, now that Karen has released clear stamps, I was able to find appropriate sentiments from both the Quiet Forest Sayings and the Coffee Chat sets.

By the way, if you'd like to try this clear acetate card, here's a link to Karen's tutorial:  Acetate Front Card.  

Set the Stage

It's time again for the Karen Burniston Designer Challenge, and this month's theme is "Set the Stage."  And the perfect way to do that is to use the new Stage Pop-up, definitely my new favorite.  I have made quite a few cards using this die set.

An early favorite of mine when I discovered Karen Burniston dies was the Christmas Tree Pop Stand.  I combined these two die sets for my challenge card.  Many years ago I made a Christmas Tree Pop Stand card in white and gold.  My new card is an updated version of that earlier one.

Here are a couple of close-up photos of my card.  Those cute little trees on the bottom panels were made with one of the dies in the Winter Charms set.

 

You can even decorate the bottom of the stage.  The two holiday sentiments used on the card are from one of Karen's clear stamp sets, Christmas Wishes.  The "push" comes from the Stage Scene stamp set.

Another Christmas-themed card I made using the Stage Pop-up (this time with the Sleigh Pop-up) is this one::