Karen Burniston Designer Challenge - Fun Faces

Karen Burniston recently had a "mini-release" of five clear stamps.  One of them was made to enhance the Paper People die set and had faces for lots of her animal dies as well.  This month's Designer Challenge theme was dedicated to that fun stamp set.

When I saw the theme "Fun Faces," an idea immediately popped into my head; and I ran with it.  As Christmas is right around the corner, I made a Christmas choir made up of 14 members, both male and female.  I placed them in the Wide Woven Basket, which is decorated with a Christmas swag from Fireplace Extras 1 and Ovals Crosshatch.  The choir members have various hair styles from Paper People, and several of them have glasses from Tiny Accessories 1.

What is so fun about the Fun Faces 1 set is that some of the Paper People images have eyelashes and some of them don't.  So, my female singers have the eyelashes, and the males do not.  You can see the difference in this photo.

This was such a fun project.

Karen Burniston Designer Challenge -- Bunny

As Easter is right around the corner, the theme for this month's Karen Burniston Designer Challenge is BUNNY.  I thought an Easter basket would be appropriate as well, choosing the Wide Woven Basket for the base of my card.

I've got not one, but two bunnies (Spring Animals) in my basket -- one holding an Easter egg and one holding a little Easter basket.  I added a few more Easter eggs (Easter Charms) and some spring flowers (Flower Pot Pop-Up), as well as the blossoming tree from the Tree Pop-Up in the rear.  As you can see, I also added some braiding around the top of the basket.  This was made from two Border Blends - Trims die-cuts braided together.  I added the Happy Easter sentiment from the Easter Charms set onto the front, having cut a shadow by drawing around the die and cutting with scissors.

This little basket will find its way onto my table for Easter dinner.

Karen Burniston New Release -- Sneak Peek Day 1

Exciting times for the Karen Burniston design team.  Karen has a new release coming out next week, and we're going to be showing you some sneak peeks all this week.  There are 11 new dies in this release.  One of the new die sets will make it lots easier to make a Double-Wide Woven Basket.  As much fun as the Woven Basket is, I love making double-wide ones; and this add-on set makes it so much easier.

I have a neighbor who just loves flamingos.  I usually give her a religious card, but this year's Christmas card for her is full of flamingos -- all in the Double-Wide Woven Basket.  The new set includes the die to make the wider sides of this basket as well as a die for the grass.  These cute flamingos are from a retired My Favorite Things set called Festive Flamingos.

I added a couple of palm trees from the Palm Tree Pop-Up set along the back of my basket and decorated it with Christmas lights from the Holiday House set.

I'll have some more sneak peeks as the week goes on, as will the rest of the team; so be sure to check back.

Karen Burniston New Release Sneak Peek - Day 5

As promised earlier in the week, I've got a couple more Halloween cards to share with you today.  The first one is made with the new Label Charm Pop-Up die.   In addition, another new die is the Slim Pattern Plate - Bats on the front, as well as the sentiment from Halloween Elements and a frame made using two dies from Short Rectangles - Crosshatch.

Inside are a couple of new dies as well - the Skeleton and Bat.  Also included in that set is a cat.

 

I love that skeleton so much that I put two of them on this double-wide Woven Basket card.

I also included both the bat and the cat from the Skeleton and Bat set, as well as the Happy Halloween with Shadow.  My haunted house in the background was made with the Holiday House, decorated with pieces from the Haunted Tiny House set.

Don't forget:  dies from this new release will be available for purchase on Monday!

Karen Burniston Designer Challenge - "Inspired by . . . "

It's time again for the Karen Burniston Designer Challenge.  This month's theme is a very cool one -- "Inspired by . . . . "  Karen put our names in a hat and drew them out in random order to determine who is each person's muse. We were to choose any project, color combo, technique, etc. by our muse as inspiration and then link to that person's project in your blog post with our inspired creation. The person chosen as my muse is Sandy Diller. I was a bit intimidated when I found that out because Sandy is so very creative, but I dove right in. As I was checking out all of Sandy's projects on her blog, I found a cute Halloween project that I liked. If you click on the picture of her card, it will take you to her blog post.

The Woven Basket is one of my favorites, but I love making it into a double-wide basket. Karen Burniston made a video explaining how to do that. You can find that video here. In addition to the Woven Basket die, I used both Halloween-related die sets -- Halloween Elements and Halloween Charms for my little graveyard.

In the very back is the graveyard scene from Halloween Elements. As Sandy did, I attached that little spider to the tree, which is a separate die. I used both ghosts, one from the Elements set and two from the Charms set. There's a raven sitting on one of the gravestones -- and lots and lots of jack-o-lanterns.

The two gray bats are mounted on a piece of acetate so they appear to be flying overhead.

I hope Sandy likes my attempt to channel her creativity.

Karen Burniston Designer Challenge - Tree

It's time again for the Karen Burniston Designer Challenge.  This month's theme is "TREE."    As Easter is right around the corner, I chose to make an Easter card -- using the Woven Basket as well as the Tree Pop-Up.  Before I added the leaves to the tree, I sponged them with a darker green distress ink while they were still in the die.  It gives some definition to each leaf this way.   Once the leaves were glued to the tree, I mounted the entire tree onto a piece of heavyweight acetate to make sure it would stand tall and not tip over.  The acetate is long enough that it goes to the bottom of the basket.

I filled the basket with some Spring Animals as well as tulips from the Garden Charms.  The sentiment on the front is from the Easter Charms.  I mounted it on a Crosshatch Oval die cut.

One feature of the Woven Basket that I really like is that, even though it's a 3-dimensional card, it folds flat for mailing.

This die is one of my favorite Karen Burniston dies.  I hope you like it as well.

CCEE2010 - Floral Arrangement

Maryann starts her month as hostess for the CCEE Stampers this week by asking us to make a card or invitation highlighting a floral arrangement.

My mom was a floral designer for many years, but I never reached her level of artistic design.  I do, however, enjoy trying.  The Karen Burniston Woven Basket gives a person the opportunity to venture into that area of "art."  I doubled the basket for my card today -- filling it with lots of colorful flowers. I added a few bees to help pollinate them!

As you can see from this picture, the basket of flowers folds flat for mailing.

Be sure to check out the CCEE Stampers blog to see some more floral arrangements.

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!

Designer Challenge - Spring or Easter

This month's Karen Burniston Designer Challenge is to make a card depicting spring or Easter, incorporating the Easter Charms, Spring Animals, or Happy Spring into it.  I decided on Easter and wanted to incorporate "He is Risen" into my card.  I chose the Woven Basket Pop-Up die, which is my current favorite, and a cross (that I stamped and fussy cut) with that sentiment on it, as well as one of the dies in the Easter Charms set.

I decided that the cross needed a bit of support, so I slipped a piece of clear acetate behind it.  And, as you can see, the card will fold flat for mailing.

I very much enjoyed this month's Designer Challenge and thank you for stopping by my blog to see my card.

CCEE1907 Love One's Birthday

Maryann continues as the CCEE Stampers hostess for this Valentine's Day.  She told us that it is also her birthday and asked us to make a birthday card for someone we love.  I'm not sure who will ultimately get this birthday card, but I have to tell you that I loved making it!  I used the new Karen Burniston Woven Basket.

As you can see, it folds flat for mailing.

I invite you to hop over to the CCEE Stampers blog to see some more loving birthday cards.

Happy Valentine's Day

The Karen Burniston Woven Basket Pop-Up lends itself to so many different occasions.  As you can see, today it's looking like Valentine's Day!

The large heart in the background was created by a punch (as were the two small, layered ones on the front), but the smaller ones within the bouquet are from the Karen Burniston Heart Pivot Panels die.  They worked so well on this Valentine.  The two different sizes make layering very easy.

I have already given this card to my Stampin' Up demonstrator -- the sentiment on the large heart is an old Stampin' Up sentiment stamp.  She loved it!

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!