Karen Burniston’s September 2023 release will be available on September 18. Here is a sneak peek at the two word sets which are smaller and in a new script for Christmas and Halloween. Look for tutorial posts on these cards next week.
Karen Burniston’s September 2023 release will be available on September 18. Here is a sneak peek at three of new border sets for Christmas and Halloween. Look for tutorial posts on these cards next week.
Karen Burniston’s September 2023 release will be available on September 18. Here is a sneak peek at one of the die sets – the Stocking Pop-Up. Look for tutorial posts on these cards next week.
Karen Burniston’s September 2023 release will be available on September 18. Here is a sneak peek at two of the die sets – Oven Pop-Up and Oven Extras. Look for tutorial posts on these cards next week.
A lovely summer day in a Tennessee valley and the zoo animals are on a train outing to celebrate someone’s birthday.
This card uses Rubbernecker’s Animal Train slimline paper pad, some foam dots and a piece of clear packaging to create a cute interactive birthday card.
Cardbase: Cutting a 7 1/2 by 8 3/4-inch rectangle of white cardstock score and fold at 3 3/4-inches to make a folded cardbase of 3 3/4 by 8 3/4-inch. Glue a scenery page to card back panel.
Slider Mechanism: Take a background scenery page from the paper pad. On the back side draw two lines in pencil at 7/8-inches from the bottom edge and the second at 2 5/8-inches from the top edge. (You may need to adjust the width of the slot to accommodate the height of your foam dots. My measurements are for 1/4-inch foam dots.) Measure 1-inch from the right side (backside right) and draw a line connected the previous two lines. On the left back side, measure 3/4-inch to connect the earlier lines. Use a craft knife and straight edge (metal ruler) to cut out slot. Save cut-out piece.
Center the scenery page over the front panel of cardbase. Mark the corners of the page on cardbase and trace the inside of the slot with a pencil. Using a circle punch cut a thumb hole (half circle) on the left edge centered off the penciled slot markings.
Glue the slot cut-out piece over the pencil markings on card front. Cut a piece of clear packaging that is 1/2-inch wide and at least 9-inches long. Lay the plastic piece over the slot cut-out. Add foam tape around the plastic leaving the thumb hole side open. (Make sure tape does not extend beyond the corner pencil marks as it will show when the scenery page is adhered on top the foam tape.) Once Scenery page is attached, remove plastic strip and use hole punch to cut thumb hole into scenery page. Insert plastic strip into slot and test for ease of movement. Assemble train and follow directions in Train section to attach it to slider plastic arm.
Train: Cut out train with sharp detail scissors. (There are coordinating dies that you can purchase from Rubbernecker if you do not like fussy cutting.) The trick to fussy cutting is to move the paper through the scissors and not the scissors through the paper. For the engine window, poke a hole and cut from hole to the corners and then cut out the window.
Glue the train together overlapping the hook-up bars. Cut out animals and flag. Glue flag to last car.
Position train above the slot with the flag just peeking over the card edge. Make sure plastic strip is pushed to the back stop of the slot. Add foam dots to plastic inside slot positioned two to the center of each train car and engine.
With plastic strip still pushed to back stop, trim plastic strip to left card edge. Cut a piece of coordinating green from paper pad to a 3/4-inch wide by 3-inch strip. Fold strip in half and attach to plastic strip with double-sided tape. (You may have to trim and taper the ends of the green strip to fit into the slot track depending on where your foam tape is.) With a black permanent marker, draw an arrow on the green tab to indicate the direction to pull.
Add a plastic strip to the train chimney and attach with a glue dot a fussy cut cloud of smoke. Glue animals onto the train. Peel off the foam dots’ backing paper and attach the train to the slider arm.
Sentiments: Stamp “Happy Birthday” on to a piece of white cardstock and fussy cut a cloud shape around it. Position the cloud on foam dots so that the smoke cloud on the train does not become a catchpoint with the birthday cloud when the slider is pulled open. Decorate the sky with remaining images of smoke clouds, bird and butterfly, using foam squares and glue dots. The inside sentiment is a computer generated one which can be downloaded below.
Envelope: The back flap has an additional animal fussy cut and glued to it.
Thank you for reading this blog post. I hope this inspires you and makes you smile. Please like and leave comments 😊
Materials Used:
Stamps
Papers
Ink
Adhesives
Tools
It’s time for the Karen Burniston Design Team Challenge for September. We were asked to use the Holiday House for a specific holiday. I have chosen Valentine’s Day.
I have been wanting to combine Karen Burniston’s House of Cards Pop-up set with some EZ-Lights for some time now. By using elements of the Holiday House die set – windows, door, gable string of lights – I was able to create a two-story house of cards that lights up. I also experimented with creating some double-sided coated cardstock using clear heat embossing powder.
Cardbase: I started with a purchased A6 (4.5 x 6.25 inches) cardbase with matching envelope. Because the cardbase was a wide side fold and I needed a short side fold, I cut the cardbase apart on the fold and used a narrow strip of cardstock to hinge the two pieces together which created a small gusset to accommodate the thickness of the pop-up inside. I cut two 4.5 strips of decorative paper with a patchwork design to cover the cardbase inside and out. Cutting the strips in half at 6-inches, I could adhere the four panels inside and out matching the design at the hinge. I trimmed on a paper cutter the edges to make a 4.5×6 inch card that will easily fit into the envelope with its thickness.
Coated Cardstock: After watching Jennifer McGuire do heat embossing on a full sheet of cardstock, I decided to try coated the thickest red cardstock I had (110 lb.) on both sides. I used a clear ink pad to coat my cardstock on one side and sprinkled clear embossing powder over it and used a heat tool to fix the powder into a coating. I repeated this several times on each side of the cardstock. The color darkened and the cardstock became thicker. The finish is not a smooth one, but rather bumpy like a stucco finish. (I found when I die cut the coated cardstock, the coating along the edges became opaque and, in some cases, chipped off. If I do this technique again, I will try doing only one coat of heat embossing.)
Windows and Door: Because the window dies in the Holiday House set cut two at once, I ended up die-cutting a window frame to act as my pattern to mark around on the back of the red card pieces and then cut out with a craft knife. I built my house of cards first, deciding which panels would need windows cut into them, and then removed them from the house, keeping the second story pieces separate from the end pieces. I cut the seven windows into the individual cards. The doorframe and door were glued on to the last end piece and a tiny, red heart from the holiday house set was glued to the front door.
House of Cards: Watch the video at the bottom of the linked page for the House of Cards set before starting. (I played with some practice card pieces I had cut to find the house shape I wanted to use.) Cut three of 4-card die. Cut windows into the seven selected pieces. The house starts with four cards creating an X. (Make sure the golf club cut outs are all facing out on the X. I made them facing in and the house wants to slip loose from the base after opening and closing a few times.) Make a square for the second story from four window pieces. Add the remaining three window panels and door panel to the ends of the X.
Attach the square over the center of the X. Attach the whole house to the white base. (It is easier to add the lights at this point before the gable pieces are added. See instructions below.) Glue the white base to cardbase.
Once the lights are adhere to the inside of the house (I ended up having one wire on the outside of the house by accident) cut eight of the gable lightblubs from the Holiday House set. Trim four of the pieces to have just nine lightblubs in the gable (that two lighblubs off each end before they turn) and four of the pieces to 11 lightblubs (thats trimming just one lightblub off each end.)
Glue the longer pieces to the opposite sides of the square looping the end lightblubs over the card joints. Add one longer piece to each end of the first story of the house. Use the remaining shorter pieces to fill in the sides still needing gable pieces.
Lights: EZ-Lights are just what they say – easy to install in a card. For the house of cards, I snaked the three wires that end in a light, up through the center x-structure before I glued the white base into the card. Once the white base was attached to the card base, I played with the positioning of the wires and battery/switch plate. I used clear packing tape to secure the light wires onto the walls of the house. (If the coating on the cards had allowed glue, I would have glued a red square of cardstock over the wires.)
(I found the best position of the plate is almost to the top edge of the card.) To attach the battery/switch plate to the card base, I sandwiched it between double layers of thin foam tape and then took a rectangle of card stock with decorative paper and covered the plate. (Before I attached the rectangle, I stamped a “push here” on the location of where the switch was.) Next, I cut triangles from the decorative paper to glue over the exposed wires on the cardbase.
Sentiments: To make the phrase “You make Home Sweet,” I used the “You” from the Thank You set along with the Home Sweet Home set. I spelled out the word “make” from the Mini Alphabet set. The “You are the Light of my Life” was computer generated and cut with the scalloped heart from the Crosshatch Hearts set. A white scalloped heart was also cut using the same die as a place for a personal message.
Envelope: A small heart from the Crosshatch Hearts set was cut from decorative paper and glued to the envelope flap to hint at what is inside.
Thank you for reading this blog post. I hope this inspires you and makes you smile. Please like and leave comments 😊
Materials Used:
Dies
Stamps
Papers
Ink
Embossing Powder
Adhesives
Tools
Miscellaneous
Last week I went to a cardmaking class taught by Donna Butler and had a chance to catch-up with some friends I hadn’t seen in a while. Here are the cards I made.
FRACTURED SHUTTER CARD
Here is a video that shows the Fractured Card or Faux Shutter technique.
SO REFRESHING CARD
Donna’s daughter Sarah designed this refreshing notecard.
IRRESISTIBLE BLOOMS CARD
Thank you for reading this blog post. I hope this inspires you and makes you smile. Please like and leave comments 😊
This card was made for Craft Roulette #176 whose parameters included: a split in the middle, jolly colors, a fruit element and a heart.
My inspiration for this card came from the Berry Special die and stamp set that came in the Die Cutting Essentials, issue 103. (This magazine is available on the Craftstash website. Note that there are different country based websites for this online vender. Use the one that works for you to avoid unnecessary currency/customs fees.) It has a stamp that says “Jam like a strawberry” so I immediately thought of a jam jar shaker and went to my Queen and Company stash of shaker kits.
Cardbase: Using a 8.5×5.5 inch rectangle of heavy white cardstock for the cardbase, I folded it in half and used a bone folder to burnish the card into a 4.25×5.5 inch A2 size. The front and back panels of the card are covered with 4×5.25 inch decorative paper rectangles. The front has an additional strip of blue decorative paper near its middle. The back uses a thin strip cut from the front panel paper as decoration. I used the jar frame die to cut the aperture into the card front when only the front decorative papers had been attached. Next, I glued on the inside decorative papers and cut the aperture again.
Shaker: Queen and Company are known for their shaker kits which use pre-cut foam shaker frames with adhesive on both sides and clear acetate covers which take the tediousness out of making shaker cards. For the jar I used two acetate pieces and one foam frame that all had been dusted with an anti-static brush. I peeled off one side of the frame’s adhesive backing and attached a pre-cut piece of acetate. Adding the glitter, seed beads and strawberry slices to the frame, I dusted the next acetate sheet again and peeled off the adhesive backing on the foam frame and attached the acetate to enclose the shaker elements. (The chucky glitter had a lot of static electric charge and jumped to the tiny bits of adhesive at the foam edges.) The shaker is attached to the card by gluing a jar frame cut from the front of the card to the inside of the card and then gluing the shaker to the jar frame.
Decorations: Eight layered strawberries were cut using the Berry Special die set from pink and green patterned paper and black cardstock. The dies cut two stems, large and small strawberry outlines and fronts with seeds cutout as well as a plant stem with large leaves. I also used two of the large leaves on the card front. Seven strawberries are scattered on the card front and one large strawberry on the back. A red plaid paper sticker on a foam dot is at the top of the card front.
Sentiments: Using the stamps from the Die-Crafting Essentials gift set, I stamped in purply-pink ink the sentiment “Jam like a strawberry” on the jar tag which is tied around the jar lid with baker’s twine, and the inside sentiment “Thank you berry much!”
Envelope: Stamped on the envelope flap is “You’re the sweetest!” in purply-pink ink.
Thank you for reading this blog post. I hope this inspires you and makes you smile. Please like and leave comments 😊
Materials Used:
Dies
Stamps
Shaker Elements and Frame
Papers
Ink
Adhesives
Tools
Miscellaneous
This is the eighth card in the Fireplace Christmas Card series.
Santa’s coming. Can you hear him on the rooftop? He’s sliding down the chimney.
For this card I used Karen Burniston dies to create an accordion card with a pop-out fireplace with Santa’s boots dangling in the fireplace opening. (Before starting, please watch the assembly video for the Fancy Label Accordion located near the bottom of the linked page.)
Cardbase: I cut three Fancy Label Accordion panels from heavy white cardstock. I also cut four of the same panels from red decorative paper and two panels from green decorative paper. The green paper panels I adhered to a cardstock panel. (I realized I needed to cut one more green panel to cover the tabs when all the panels are glued together.)
The red panels I trimmed out the center label at the pivot points. Using the largest and second largest label dies in the set to cut a frame, I cut borders from two of the red center labels. For the back personal message label I used the largest of the label dies to cut a frame that went to the edge of the white label.
Fireplace: I cut the fireplace front and mantel pieces using the Fireplace Pop-Up. For the fireplace I glued a brick decorative paper to white cardstock and die-cut it using the embossing feature. I then trimmed off a 5/8-inch from each side of the fireplace so it would fit into the card. The mantel piece was cut from white and ink blended.
Bam Box and Boots: Because I was using a different mechanism than the fireplace mechanism, I recommend watching the assembly video for the small bam box. I tried both sizes of bam box, but you need to use the smaller one to get the fireplace to fit on the label and not catch when the card is folded closed. Glue three of the four decorative panels to the bam box. Before you add the rubber band to the bam box, cut the teardrop shaped holes for the boots (circled in red in photo below) using a sharp pointed piercing tool and scissors. (I used an old ice pick or awl.) If you plan to glue the bam box arched side to the fireplace, cut the holes in the panel just below it as shown in the photo circled in red. Attach the boots by slipping the tabs through the holes.
Assemble the bam box as usual.
I did not attach the fourth decorative panel on my card since I knew the arched side would be glued to the back of the fireplace. Test the placement of the bam box on both the fireplace and the pivot label before the glue sets. Once the fireplace is attached to the panel, attach the mantel with the wider side glued to the fireplace.
Card Back: Every time I make an accordion card, I forget to save the decorative frame papers to glue on last, to cover the tabs that get glued as the card is assembled. This time I did it to the middle green panel.
Sentiments: “Ho Ho Ho” comes from cutting down the “Hooray!” in Word Set 4 while “Merry Christmas” is from Word Set 3. The Santa face is from the Gnome and Santa die set.
To get the word” Christmas” to stand-out from the red border paper I cut an additional “Christmas” in white and off set it behind the red word.
Envelope: The red “Merry Christmas” on the envelope flap and its green border are stamps from Anna Griffin.
CRX Sheet: The card recipient experience (CRX) sheet explains how to close the fireplace. it is a free download.
Thank you for reading this blog post. I hope this inspires you and makes you smile. Please like and leave comments 😊
Other Holiday Fireplace Cards by designer/brand
Materials Used:
Dies
Stamps
Papers
Ink
Adhesives
Tools
Miscellaneous
Ully Cat's World 