Sometimes there are crafting elements that just take you under their spell and make you play with them.
Queen & Co. Halloween shaker kits have me under their spell This card is made up of elements from two kits – Fright Fest (shoes and papers) and Witch Hat. These kits have the dies, foam shaker frames and acetate windows. Some come with the shaker elements (I added to them from my stash) and/or matching paper (Fright Fest for this card.)
Card Base: There are three pieces that need to be cut and assembled to make the card base. Lightweight to medium weight cardstock is ideal as there will be decorative papers glued to all sides of the card which will strengthen the base. Cut one piece 6×12 inches and fold at center into a 6×6 card. Cut two 6 x 6 1/4 inch squares. Score and fold 1/4 inch to make the squares into 6 x 6 inches.
Cut nine decorative papers 6×6 inches to cover the inside and outside of the card. (Three of the same pattern for the inside walls and three of the same pattern for the outside walls, two of the inside floor and one for the Back of the card.)
Glue the thinnest of the papers that will cover the side squares and cut the windows into these pieces using the six-trapezoid cutting die from the Mini Ball Pop-up Double-Ups. Use the side panels to mark the location to cut the window in the thickest of the decorative papers. Glue all the decorative papers onto the side squares. Glue the flaps on to the top half of the folded card base. Glue the remaining decorative papers onto the card base. (I made a mistake when I glued the decorative bat pattern plate onto the orange back of the card and ended up with them upside down. The glue set before I noticed my mistake.)
Fireplace: Watch the assembly video before assembling. Cut one of the fireplace fronts and a rectangle the size of the fireplace front. Emboss them both to show the bricks. Use a white crayon to highlight the bricks on both pieces. Trim the rectangle to be a 1/8 inch shorter on each side. Turn the rectangle upside down and glue to the back wall of the card base. Die cut and emboss one health/mantel in a stone color. Color the heath stone and glue to the floor of the card base. Glue the fireplace mechanism as directed in the assembly video to the fireplace back.
Die cut a partial patterned plate of spiders and webs of vellum. Separate some webs and spiders. To decorate the fireplace and other parts of the room. (I used some thin foam squares to make the mantel standout over a web.)
Floor Flap: Take the remaining floor square of decorative paper and cut it in half. I had to match the pattern on my card’s floor. (Because I glued two pieces together, I was able to attach a ribbon loop to act as a pull tab for the floor flap.) The flap is cut to stop just at the fireplace heath. Use STRONG clear tape to attach the flap to the card base floor. (I made the mistake of using removable tape which broke when the card was being opened by the card recipient.)
Furniture: Watch the assembly video for the furniture before assembling. (Once I had assembled the sofa and chair, used double-sided removable tape to find the best placement of the furniture on the floor flap so that when closed no parts of the furniture can be seen. Also, you may want to temporarily tape a skeleton to the back o the furniture as you figure out the placement of the furniture.)
Skeletons: Cut nine whole skeletons and the heads of three more. Use the die as a stencil to color the skeletons faces with a fine-tipped black marker. Use the tiny accessories die sets to dress out the skeletons. For the seated skeletons, bend them at the hips. Glue an extra head piece to the back if the skeleton if the marker has bled through. Glue the seated skeletons to the pop-ups on the sofa and chair and the feet to the seat. You can raise an arm to the armrest as well. Glue other skeletons to walls, fireplace, window frames and backs of furniture. (I used double-sided, removable tape to do a layout of the skeletons before gluing them, to make sure they didn’t hinder any mechanism.)
Banner: The “Happy Halloween” banner is made from black glitter cardstock and thinner orange and yellow papers. The mini alphabet die set and the flag bunting from the Twist Panel Pop-Up die set are used to cut the banner pieces. Two strands of baker’s twine are threaded with the letters.
Envelope: While the card is 6 x 6 inches, its thickness makes it too thick to fit into a stand envelope. An envelop was created from a 12 x12 inch sheet of double-sided paper from the Martha Stewart paper pad. The center point of each edge was marked in pencil, scored and folded using a metal straight edge. The seams were glued and a Velco fastener covered with a flat back gem.
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Card Base with Window: Starting with a 10 x 7 inch piece of cardstock, scored and folded in half to create a 5 x 7 inch top folded card base. Position the Mini-Ball Double-Ups die so that it will look good from the outside as well as the inside next to the fireplace. The orientation of the widow will be up-side down from what is on the opposite side of the card. Die-cut the window with the card open on a die-cutting machine. (This is the only time you’ll need a wide platform die-cutting machine. If you only have a 6-inch-wide machine you can cut you card base in half, cut your window and glue a strip of paper as the card hinge.)
Cut “logs” from wood grain paper, ink the edges to create roundness and glue in place both on the outside of the card and the inside wall. Cut thinner strips of the woodgrain paper for the floor of the cabin, ink edges and glue in place alternating the seams as a real floor would be installed. (I had left over pieces of woodgrain paper from cutting Karen Burniston’s Landscape Rectangle Accordion that I used to frame the window.)
Fireplace: Watch the assembly video before assembling. Cut TWO of the fireplace fronts and emboss them both to show the bricks. I tried several different crayons until I found a three color-mixed crayon in the Crayola True-to-Life series of crayons that blended brown, black and burnt orange to color the bricks.
I glued one of the brick fireplace fronts upside down as the back wall of the fireplace. Next is the hearth piece colored to be sooty sandstone that glued to the floor of the card.
I find it easier to attach anything hanging from the fireplace mechanism before I install the mechanism. After experimenting with how best to attach the pot from the Good Luck Charms set, I ended with gluing the charm circle loop to the part of the mechanism where the Santa boots would dangle. I glued some flames to the bottom of the pot to make the fire be all around the pot. The pot moves a little when opening and closing the card.
Glue together the fire and logs and then attach the cube-like pop-up strip into the card base and attach the fire. Glue the fireplace mechanism into card base. Then attach brick fireplace front and mantel. I use thin foam squares to attach the mantel to the brick fireplace front.
Accessories: Fireplace tools and fender are from the Fireplace Extras 1 set. The lantern is cut from silver holographic cardstock colored with black permanent marker using the small lantern die from the Camping Charms set. The fish is also cut using a die from the camping charms and uses shimmer cardstock with distress inks. The metal plate the fish is on uses the circle from the snowman set. The rugs are from the oval crosshatch set and the deer head is the Christmas animals set on a plaque cut from the smallest crosshatch labels’ set covered in Glossy Accents. The only die that is not Karen Burniston is the fishing rod by Tayored Expressions.
Sentiments: “Happy Birthday” is a single die while “DAD” is double cut from the large alphabet dies from green and black and then slightly over-laid for a shadow effect.
Back of envelopeFront of envelope
Envelope: A brown kraft paper envelope completes the card with stamped images from the companion stamps of the patterned papers by Craft Consortium.
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Moose Riley and pup Simon have decided to do an old-style, silent video using signs to give some birthday greetings which pop-up when you pull the tab. They wanted to show off all their dress-up accessories in the stamp set, so each image has different accessories – from balloons to glasses, ties and hats.
My card base is a top fold mini slimline card, I cut in two pieces (3×6 inches and 3×6 ¼ inches) scored and folded the longer piece into a tab to be glued over the other piece.
To make the scenes change, I’ve use Karen Burniston’s Waterfall Card die set which makes it very easy to create a flip-book style card without having to do a lot of math. (Watch the assembly video before assembling.)
I’ve added two small mini-pop-up cubes behind each image. You can use any of the small pop-up tabs from other sets such as the Frame Pull-Pop-up. (I cut mine from a thin strip of matching paper about ¼ x 1 ¼ inches, folded into five sections of ¼ inch long. Glue fifth section as a tab to make cube.)
I’ve added a zig-zag border to one of the pages to help hid the small bit of moose antler that sticks out on the left side.
Leftover dress-up accessories were used to decorate the envelope flap hinting at what’s inside.
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Lost treasure, pirates, tropical islands, “Arrrr…,” stories of Long John Silver and Jack Sparrow and International Talk Like a Pirate Day, which happens to be today, September 19, 2022, are what today’s card is all about. (And maybe a little Snoopy too.)
I just love little Skellie, the skeleton from Karen Burniston’s new fall 2022 release of dies. Influenced by the many talented designers on KB’s design team, who have used Skellie as a variety of characters, I had to have him as a pirate popping up in a treasurer chest of gold coins, sword aloft. The Tiny Accessories Set 1 provide the eye patch, sword and head scarf to turn Skellie into a pirate.
The treasure chest is its own set of dies that play well with the Parcel Pop-Up mechanism. I viewed both the assembly videos for the Treasure Chest and the Parcel Pop-Up before making the card. Having worked with 19th century traveling trunks, I know that many had decorative paper lining the inside of them, so I chose a patterned kraft paper using the plain side to be wood embossed side (I used the ink the die method from Karen’s videowith a brown ink cube) and the patterned side for inside the trunk. The trim is a mirrored brown cardstock with the raised circles colored with a fine-tipped permanent marker.
For the front of the card, I used the side palm trees from the Palm Tree Pop-Up and the wavy sand from the Long Nature Edges set. The Long nature Edges stitched hills die cuts two sets of hills, so the second piece is used inside the card instead of the sand pile die that comes with the Treasure Chest set. Shells inked pink from the Tropical Scene die set complete the front of the card and a starfish on the back of the card for fun. The small island with palm trees inside the card are also from this set.
I’ve been wanting to use my pirate sentiment stamps for some time, and this was the card for them. The “Happy Birthday” that comes with the stamp set is small, so I went with KB’s larger sentiment die and shadow die.
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There is nothing so relaxing as a train ride through the mountains. Seeing the pine trees at the higher elevations and the babbling streams in the gullies. Hearing the chug-chug-chugging of the steam engine and experiencing the darkness of a mountain tunnel coming back into the sunlight.
In my challenge to myself to see how many different themed cards I can make with Karen Burniston’s new Fireplace die set; I decided on a mountain train tunnel with the mouth of the tunnel using the fireplace mechanism’s opening. All the dies used are by Karen Burniston.
I had made multiple train cars and engines for an earlier project. (Watch the assembly video for the trains.) The train tracks are from a train elements set and I cut 4 of them to have enough pieces to form the track I needed for the front and inside of the card. For the smoke from the smokestack, I turned the smallest cloud from the Outdoor Scene set on its side and glued inside the stack.
The front of the card uses curving hillside with large pine trees from the Outdoor Scene set and the treeless curving stitched edger from the Long Nature Edges set for the foothills. I shaded the hillside tope edges with a pale brown ink.
For the card’s sentiment, I double cut the large words “Enjoy” and “ride” once from brown and again from black so that I could offset them to create a shadow. The oval cuts out the word “THE” so it is backed with a scrap of black.
The inside of the card requires some practice laying out to get the right placement of the mountains, so they won’t stick out of the card when closed. (Watch the fireplace assembly video before laying out and assembling.) I used scrap pieces of brown lightweight cardstock to cut my crosshatch ovals. (Largest oval die in set was used.) I cut off the bottom of the ovals to have varying heights. The largest oval I turned over on the back, traced the mechanism opening onto and then die-cut the opening using the second to smallest to fit inside the penciled opening.
The smaller ovals are glued to the sides and behind the oval with the tunnel opening. I then adhered the fireplace mechanism as shown in assembly video and glued the mountains onto mechanism matching up the openings. Next, I pieced together the train tracks to come out of the tunnel and near the side of the mountains. Using the pop-up strip from the Fireplace die set and the two angled pop-ups from the Mini Pops set, played with placement of the pop-ups with the train pieces to set spacing. Glue the pop-ups first and once their glue has set, then adhere the train pieces. (I bent the pop-ups at their original scored folds, but you might play with other folds and or strips to get a more realistic alignment of the train cars.)
The babbling stream is created from strips of patterned paper cut with the Long Nature Edges curving stitched edger. The diagonal placement adds drama to the card and space in the corner to write a personal message.
Leftover pieces from the train track as well as pieces from other card projects complete the back of the card.
As is my habit, I decorated the envelope back flap with additional train pieces to hint at what’s inside.
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Pets are great companions and always eager to greet us when we come home. This card is for a pet to their owner who is recuperating from an illness.
For this card, I’ve used two die sets from the August 2022 release by Karen Burniston – Fireplace Pop-Up and Word Set 15 – Just Because. The fireplace is the lower half of the doghouse with half a crosshatch square for the roof. (I highly recommend watching the assembly video for the fireplace before starting the card.)
The fireplace mechanism is also used to make the doghouse pop-up. You need to adhere it first before assembling the doghouse. You will need a 5×7 inch card base.
To make the doghouse, I cut the medium crosshatched square diagonally to have a triangle. You should glue the triangle onto the fireplace base so that the height of the house is 4.5 inches high. (I had to trim off the tip of the house to fit into the card when assembled onto the mechanism.)
I cut strips of the blue cardstock to become siding on the house. Start gluing strips on at the bottom and overlap them to cover the house, trimming the siding on the triangle to fit the slatted roof eaves.
Use the cut out from the fireplace to make a sign for the doghouse. Using a brown ink, rubbing ink on a sponge from the bottom to top to weather the house.
To create the eaves, use the medium crosshatch square with the next size down square to cut a square frame. Then snip at opposite corners to from two crosshatch eves that cane be glued together and then glued over the eaves and siding on the house.
Glue the house to the mechanism matching up the opening. Decorate with grass, clouds, sun from various nature decorative die sets by Karen Burniston. The puppy and dog dish with bone are from her Cat and Dog set. (See assembly video for the dog.) They are made to pop-up away from the house using the small pop-up mechanism from the fireplace set. (You could also angle them using KB’s Mini Pops Pop-Up die set.)
The sentiments are from two die sets – Word Set 15 – Just Because and Word Set 10 – Thinking of You.
For the front of the card, I used a rectangle of plaid paper cut a half-inch smaller than the card dimension and used a fine tipped black marker and metal ruler to draw two lines around the paper to frame it. White stich marks were added to the plaid paper with a white gel pen.
The sentiment is another of Karen Burniston’s die sets called Home Sweet Home. The grass and dog were left over from the inside of the card and the hearts are from the “Os” in the front sentiment.
The envelope flap is stamped with a Lawn Fawn stamp with dogs and other critters to hint at what’s to come inside.
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(Watch the assembly video before starting your card.) The pop-up fireplace is a bit different from other fireplace pop-ups that cut directly into the card base. For this fireplace, the pop-up mechanism is a separate glue in piece that could be used with other covers than the fireplace. With two sets of fireplace and room decor accessories, making a cute room scene is a snap. The same die is used for the mantel and the heath. I cut them from brown and black cardstock respectively and used black ink on mantel to age it and a white shimmer watercolor crayon on the black hearth to similar slate. The white shimmer crayon was also used on the fireplace brick to highlight the embossed brick.
There are lots of great Halloween themed dies in this release. The large bat, skeleton, small pumpkins and bow tie cat are all from the Skeleton Bat set. (I cut the handles off the pumpkins and used one to make the bat smile.) The slim pattern plates were used on the front and back of the card. (I find that the weight of the front and back of the card need to be equal or the back heavier for the pop-up fireplace to work properly.) For the spiders and webs on the card front I used a pearlescent vellum. On the flurry of bats on the back, I used a white gel pen to dot eyes on all the bats.
To make the candles and clock on the mantel pop-up along with the planters, cat and skeleton on the floor stand up, I used the tiny pop-up strip from the fireplace set. When folded into a cube, the pop-up mechanism has a long side and a short side with allow you to have different dimensions for your objects on the mantel and floor. The Fireplace Extras 1 is Christmas themed. I used the candles from this set. Fireplace Extras 2 has more everyday items like the clock, planter, picture frames and fireplace fender or fence that I used. (I couldn’t resist putting some skeletons in the picture frames!)
If you notice the vellum spider web and dangling spider in the fireplace, they are from the previously released Halloween Scene set. I cut one of the dangling boots in the fireplace set down to use as a base to glue a piece of thread to and then the spider.
The love of being outdoors and helping plants grow is what being a green thumb is all about. This is a birthday card for a lovely lady whose happy place is working with her plants.
For the card base I used an 11 x 4.25-inch piece of patterned paper (strawberries on front and dark gray with flowers on the back.) With the pivot label dies, I like to use double-sided tape to adhere the decorative backing paper. If you put tape around the edges and pull back the tape’s backing paper at the corners only, you can re-position the decorative backing paper until it fits and then pull the all the tape’s backing paper.
Fold the card base in half and place the pivot label die in the center of the card front. Tape in place with removable tape and open the card base out to die-cut. (Save the cut-out waste pieces to use as decorations for other parts of your card.)
Cut three of the label die from the patterned paper. Tape two of the labels together and then die-cut the oval from it. Trim the tab off one of the oval frames. Glue the tab from the solid label to one of the oval frames then glue the other oval frame to cover up the tab. Punch a hole for the charm to hang from (The die has a hole to use a stencil.) I reverse cut the watering can to pour to the right from silver card stock. The metal jump ring I used has a rhinestone dangle. I find it easier to attach the jump ring with the charm to the oval frame before I glue the label and oval frame into the card.
Now to decorate the card. I had garden charms left from another project where I had “dirtied-up” the tools and gloves with brown ink dabbed on with a small finger sponge dauber. The tiny hearts are from the heart eyeglasses in the Tiny Accessories 2 set. The plant is from the Garden Charms set. I used the cut-out waste pieces from the front pivot label to frame the inside label with slicing patterned with solid color pieces.
I felt the inside of the card need more decorative elements, so I cut strips of flowers from the Long Nature Edges 2 set from white and used yellow Nuvo drops to make them into strawberry blossoms. (Remember to let the Nuvo Drops dry at least 16-24 hours before gluing them into the card. They will stick to each other until totally dry.)
The Sentiments come from the Garden Charms set and Word set 2. The various white labels are part of the Label Charms Pop-Up set as are the white outline flowers on the front of the card.
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Ully Cat's World 