Karen Burniston Designer Challenge -- Holiday House

For this month's Designer Challenge, Karen asked each of us to use the Holiday House set.  As Halloween is right around the corner, I chose to make a Halloween slimline card using this die.  Karen has several Halloween-themed dies, so I had a lot of dies from which to choose to make my spooky scene.

For my scene, I started with gray cardstock and sponged some Hickory Smoke ink around the sides and top to give the sky a bit of depth.

Inside the card I decorated the Little Twist Panel twice with some spooky images from the various Halloween sets.

I know the rest of the team has some great Holiday House cards as well.  Be sure to check them out.

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.  

Karen Burniston New Release - Day 1

Hooray!  It's time for the new release from Karen Burniston!  Actually, you won't be able to purchase them until next week; but we've got some sneak peeks for you this week. 

Here's a peek at all the new dies in this release.

My first card for the week uses a several of them (one is brand-new and three that contain dies that are not brand-new).  The front of the card is pretty simple -- and uses snowflakes from Long Nature's Edges 2 and words from Word Set 13 - Snow.  I tried the closure that Karen showed us a couple of weeks ago.

On the inside I constructed a 3-ball snowman, using one of the new sets -- Snow Man Add-ons.  It contains parts to make a cute snowman.  That's the brand-new set.  The new/not so new sets are called Double-Ups.  They contain duplicate decorator pieces for each of the ball pop-ups (Surprise, Bitty, and Mini).   This will make cutting the decorator pieces go much faster.

When I put this card together, I wanted the snowman to be a free-standing element; so I "borrowed" another of Karen's ideas and attached him to a base which can be removed from the card.

The rest of the team also has some sneak peeks today, so be sure to check them out as well.

Karen Burniston Designer Challenge -- MOD HOLIDAY

It's time again for the Karen Burniston Designer Challenge.  This month we were to make a Christmas card using a non-traditional color.

As one of my favorite colors is purple, that's the direction in which I went.  The front of the card is relatively simple, with just a snowy hill (using the Long Nature's Edges 2) and snowflakes (also Long Nature's Edges 2).

The inside has a bit more to say.

I used the new Little Labels Pop-Up and added a few holiday charms to the labels.  Please note that another Karen Burniston die set, the Paper Frames, has dies in the same shape as the labels.  I actually used some of them on the layering.  One of the dies in the new Border Blends - Trims set looks so nice with two pieces woven together, as you can see along the base of the pop-up.  Another new die is the Labels - Crosshatch, which I used as a place to sign the card, dressing it up a little with some more snowflakes.

Thanks for stopping by and looking at my Designer Challenge card for December.

CCEE2140 - Balloons Around the World Day

Who doesn't love balloons?  Not Frances Byrne, who is this month's hostess for the CCEE Stampers.  For her first challenge this month she asked the team to include a balloon or balloons on our cards to celebrate Balloons Around the World Day, which was October 5th.

I recently purchased a grab bag from Taylored Expressions.  I had no idea what would be contained in the bag and was pleasantly surprised with this cute set, which contained a hot air balloon.   Riding in a hot air balloon was one of the items I have checked off my bucket list.

For the inside I used a couple of new dies from Karen Burniston, the Iron Fence Pop-Up and pieces from the Long Nature's Edges 2 set.  I pulled out a hot air balloon from a design by Karen Burniston when she was designing for Elizabeth Craft Designs and added it to the Katherine Label Pop-Up mechanism.

Check out the CCEE Stampers blog to see how the rest of the team celebrated this fun special day.

Simon Says Stamp and Riley & Co. Collaboration for STAMPtember

 STAMPtember is a fun month of collaborations between Simon Says Stamp and various other stamp companies.  Today that company is Riley & Company, and they produced a cute stamp set called I Like You.

I've made two cards using this fun set.  The first one is a slimline birthday card.  I combined this stamp set with a few Karen Burniston dies -- Long Nature's Edges/Long Nature's Edges 2 and Happy Birthday sentiment die.  That sentiment on the front really speaks to me!

The inside is a simple "Happy Birthday."

My second card uses another one of those humorous sentiments, along with the Karen Burniston House & Fence die set.  The background paper is from Divinity Designs.

I want to thank Simon Says Stamp for giving me the opportunity to play with this cute new set.

Karen Burniston Designer Challenge -- Sun or Snow

It's time again for the Karen Burniston Designer Challenge.  Karen has a good one for us this month -- Sun or Snow.  As I live in Florida and rarely see it, I chose "snow."  

Several months ago I purchased some background paper packs for slimline cards from Whimsy Stamps.  For my card today, I used several of the papers from the Frozen pack.  On the front of my card I used the one with several icebergs on it -- the perfect thing for these cute penguins from the Karen Burniston Winter Animals die set.  I strategically placed two of them on the floating ice.  The sentiment is from the new Word Set 13 - Snow.  I love that two of the words in this set (Brrr! and Snow) have shadows.

Another one of the Whimsy Stamps background papers adorns the inside of my card, but the star of the show is the newly released Garden Bench Pop-Up.   As you can see, another penguin has jumped up on the bench.  In the background is the new Street Lantern Pop-Up peeking over the back of the bench.

I also used the snowflakes die from the new Long Nature's Edges 2 set, as well as one of the ones from the original Long Nature's Edges set.  All that was left was to add the small rectangle for a place to sign the card.

Be sure to check out all the cards made by the Design Team this month.  Karen will have her card tomorrow.

Karen Burniston Blog Hop - New Release

Welcome to our Karen Burniston Products - KB Riley LLC August Release Blog Hop. The Design Team have come together with Karen today for a fun blog hop to celebrate the release of 14 new dies. Sneak peeks of the new release started last week, and the dies are available to order NOW!

This release includes:

4 new Add-Ons Die Sets - Character Add-ons 1; Character Add-ons 2; Gingerbread Tiny House Add-ons; Haunted Tiny House Add-ons
4 new Pop-up Die Sets - Garden Bench Pop-up; Iron Fence Pop-up; Snowman Pop-up; Street Lantern Pop-up
4 new sentiment sets - Hello; Happy Halloween; Word Set 13 - Snow; Merry Christmas Shadow
1 new Stand Alone Die Set - Tiny Gnomes
1 new Slimline Die Set - Long Nature Edges 2

Dies are available to order now on the website.

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 Monday, August 16th 2021. 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!

My gatefold slimline card uses several of the new dies -- the Iron Fence Pop-Up, the Street Lantern Pop-Up, Tiny Gnomes, and the Long Nature's Edges 2, as well as several previously-released ones -- Christmas Tree Pop-Up, Border Blends/Party, and Word Set 3/Holiday.  The street lantern is a pop-up die, but I used it flat.  I wanted to give the impression of frosted glass in the lantern, so I cut a second glass piece from vellum, glued it to the back of the black lantern and then glued the white piece with the flame behind the vellum.  I added some small red flat-backed pearls to the wreath.

The inside of my card expands the fence to the full 9", breaking up in the center for the Christmas tree and carolers, made from the Tiny Gnomes.  Check out Karen Burniston's instructional video to see how to make a caroler from the Tiny Gnomes set.  I added a wreath to each section of the fence, gluing it only in the center for the ones on the pop-out sections of fence.  I used a silver marker to camouflage the white slider panel behind the fence.

I had also made a similar A2-sized card using many of these same dies, adding a few cardinals and lantern swags.

Check out the blogs from the entire team and be sure to comment on each one to increase your chances of winning a $25 gift certificate.  Make sure you leave contact info on your comment so that we can get in touch with you should you be a winner.

Karen Burniston

Frances Byrne

Lois Bak (that's me)

Karen Aiken

Sandy Diller

Fran Sabad

Kelly Booth

Another Karen Burniston Sneak Peek

Yesterday I had a Christmas-y card on my blog; today it's Halloween!  Another one of the dies in the new Karen Burniston release is a re-release of the Iron Fence.  I had not ever seen this die until just a month or so ago, and I was happy to learn that Karen was re-releasing it.

I combined it with several other Halloween dies to create my card.  The front has dies from Halloween Scene and Halloween Elements, along with a new one -- the Happy Halloween sentiment, complete with a shadow die.

You'll find the new Iron Fence on the inside, along with the new Long Nature's Edges 2.

I just love this fence and the way it pops out when you open the card.  It's just too clever!

These new dies will be available for purchase next Monday, August 9th.