Karen Burniston Dies

A Modern Halloween

| ullycatdesigns

Casting a spell of delight is this Halloween card depicting a modern-day witch cooking up a green bubbling brew on her shiny new stove.

The card uses dies from Karen Burniston’s September 2023 release including Oven Extras, Oven Pop-Up, Witch and Cauldron, Halloween Borders and Small Script – Halloween, a word set. A few other die sets from Karen Burniston were also used.

Cardbase: I started with a rectangle of white cardstock 10×6.5 inches that was folded in half to form a 5-inch tall by 6.5-inch wide, top fold card. The outside two panels were covered with black and white night sky paper. The inside top panel with a pumpkin wallpaper and a green grid cardstock.

Card Front: I used the Swirl Pattern Plate to create green, wispy steam swirls that encircle a witch’s face and elements of a spell casting brew – all of which come from the Witch and Cauldron die set. (I cut the swirl pattern and then used pressed the piece onto Sticky Specks, an adhesive sheet that can be applied after die-cutting.) I used the stencil features of the witch’s face die to color in the eyes and mouth. The nose can be folded out to ink the edges with green ink. The bubbles, eyeball and frog legs also have stencil features. With the exceptions of the face, bone, eyeball and broom, all other elements have been brushed with a glitter gloss to give them some subtle sparkle.

Standing Witch: Using the Witch and Cauldron die set; I used all the witch dies except the hat dies to create this long-legged witch with bangs.  Because she is seen both the front and the back, I cut two sets of her dress and sleeves. Her legs are two strips of 3/8-inch by 1-inch that I drew stripes on with a black marker. After I glued her head to her hair, I used an ultra-fine tipped black marker to draw in her bangs. She is adhered to a piece of clear plastic packaging with doubled sided tape so that she appears to be standing on the large bam box. When positioning the bam box, make sure that in the closed position the witch is within the closed card. (An assembly video of the bam box is located at near the bottom of the linked bam box page.)

Oven/Stove: I was genuinely surprised at how easy the pop-up oven is assembled. It has just two pieces -the outer shell which I cut from black mirror cardstock and the inner platform which I cut from 100 lb. black cardstock.

The platform attaches much like the Little Labels Pop-Up with the front tabs gluing to the floor of the card and the back tab gluing to the wall of the card. Before I attached the outer shell, I added a 1 3/8-inch square of clear plastic packaging to the back of the oven door with double-sided tape.

Then I cut another oven door from black cardstock trimming the bottom 1/8-inch shy of the fold line. Using a black marker, I colored the space around the oven door fold on the back (to hide the white) and the edges of the mirrored cardstock. I also cut a 2-inch square of black cardstock and glued it to the back wall just above the pop-up platform. This will be the inside wall of the oven. It is easier to add the items inside the oven before the outer shell is attached, but you can still add the two pop-up cubes – one for the oven rack and then the other for the pan. The pan cube is adhered to the rack cube sandwiching the rack in place. (I ended up using a foam square between the two cubes to get a strong bond.)

To attach the oven shell, glue the bottom to the center of the platform and then fold the oven flat and add adhesive to the back of the stove knob panel. Close the card and the top panel will be positioned on the card wall so that it forms the stove. On the tabs that come off the sides of the stove top add glue. Now position the cabinet pieces’ small squares onto the tabs. Glue cabinet bottoms to the top edge of the platform, so that there is a toe kick below the cabinets.

Cabinets: Once the stove is attached; you can add the side cabinets of drawers. I cut the cabinets from some embossed wood grain cardstock and then inked them with brown ink to bring out the grain. The drawer panels and knobs are part of the Oven Pop-Up set. Decorative paper was used for the countertops. The upper cabinets are cut using the larger rectangles dies in the Oven Extras set. For the cabinet doors over the vent hood (also in the Oven Extras set) I turned the rectangle on its side and cut the smaller decorative panel in half. Setting these small doors slightly apart, creates the illusion of two doors with silver knobs. The three upper cabinets were joined together with a strip of cardstock glued to their backs. They then were adhered to the card with foam tape.

Decorations: Between the two oven sets are lots of fun pieces that add dimension and realism to the pop-up scene. The Oven Pop-Up set includes the stove burners and knobs, oven rack and handle. The Oven Extras set includes the pan in the oven and pot on the stove as well as three pop-up cube strips that I used to pop-up the oven rack, pan inside the oven and pot on the stove. For the green bubbles in the pot, I used the hearts in the Oven Pop-Up set glued to the back of the pot which has its lid cut off. The bubbles are covered with green Nuvo Drops for dimension and slime factor. The orange canisters are the pot cut narrower and the lid glued on. They are adhered with foam squares to the wall. The orange rugs are from the Rectangle Crosshatch set. The brooms are from the Witch and Cauldron set and attached to the wall with foam squares as is the woodgrain scrap with silver knobs. The cooking utensil in the witch’s hand is from the Oven Pop-Up set. From the Halloween Borders set, I used the skulls and bones on the back of the card as well as two skulls inside the oven in a pan.

Sentiments: The new Small Script Halloween word set has the “hocus pocus” used on the card front as well as the “happy halloween” used inside on the kitchen rugs. The larger rug has space to add a personal message.

Envelope: “Cast A Spell” and a bubbling cauldron are stamped in black on the back of the envelope to set the tone for the card 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

  • Fun Stampers Journey – Rubber Stamps – Witches Brew – SS-0388

Papers

  • Bazzill – 12×12 Raised Dot Cardstock – Berry Pretty
  • Bazzill – 8.5×11 Textured Cardstock – Tiara -18-1002
  • American Crafts – 12×12 Patterned Paper – Pumpkin Wallpaper – 320459
  • American Crafts – 12×12 Patterned Paper – Night Sky – 320409
  • American Crafts – 12×12 Embossed Wood Grain Cardstock – Dark Kraft
  • The Paper Studio – 12×12 Textured Paper – Football – 5241435
  • Keep It Simple – 12×12 Double-Sided Cardstock
  • Silver and Black Mirror Cardstock
  • Woodgrain Embossed 12
  • White, Black, Kraft, Orange, Green and Yellow Cardstock
  • Clear Plastic Packaging
  • A7 envelope – White

Ink

  • Memento – Fade-Resistant Dye ink – Tuxedo Black
  • Ranger – Tim Holtz – Distress Ink- Gathered Twigs and Mowed Lawn
  • Sharpie – Permanent Marker – Ultra Fine Tip – Black and Red
  • Sharpie – Permanent Marker –Fine Tip – Black
  • Farber-Castell – Pitt Artist Pen – 1.5 Bullet Nib – White-101 Marker – Snow
  • Sakura – Gelly Roll Pen – Medium – White
  • Nuvo – Aqua Shimmer – Glitter Gloss

Adhesives

Tools

  • Die Cutting Machine
  • We R Memories – QuickStick
  • Bone Folder
  • Sponge Dauber
  • Craft Mat
  • Scissors
  • Kat Scrappiness – Anti-Static Tool
  • Tweezers
  • Stamping Platform
  • LDRS – Stampendable Stamping Tool
  • Stamping Cloth

Miscellaneous

Baking Gingerbread

| ullycatdesigns

The fragrance of spices and fresh baked gingerbread herald the Christmas season. Decorating a gingerbread house is often a group activity for families. This card is intended to evoke these kinds of memories.

Karen Burniston’s September 2023 release of new dies include the following dies used on this card: Oven Pop-Up, Oven Extras, Christmas Borders 1, Christmas Borders 2 and Small-Script – Christmas. Also included in the card are Karen’s Tiny House Pop-Up and Gingerbread Tiny House Add-Ons.

Cardbase: I used a white purchased A6 (4.75×6.5-inch) cardbase and covered the outside of it with two 4.75×6.5-inch panels of golden striped paper. Inside, I cut 4.75×6.5-inch panels of pink patterned paper and glued them close to the center fold but leaving a tiny gap at the fold. The white gap was colored in with a pink marker to match the paper on the inside of the card.

Stove: While the Oven Pop-Up is designed to be 3D, it can be trimmed and used as a flat piece by cutting off the stove top section and using the utensil handle as the burners. The oven window is backed with a silver baking sheet glued and taped to the back of the oven door. (Before I die-cut the oven, I covered the red cardstock with clear packing tape to get a shiny effect.) The handle and knobs were cut, folded and colored as you would for a pop-up version of the oven.

Decorations – Card Front: For the baking elements on the front of the card, all of them except the mixer are in the Oven Pop-up set. The mixer is in the Oven Extras set. The plates that the cookies are on are the burner circles for the stove top. I covered a piece of red cardstock with clear packing tape before cutting out all the red elements. For the white mixing bowl and plates, I used a glitter gloss to make them sparkle.

Gingerbread House: Watch the assembly video for the Gingerbread Tiny House Add-Ons located at the bottom of the linked page before cutting out pieces. I covered all the edges of the tiny house base before adhering the gingerbread panels with glitter gloss to make shiny frosting. You can die-cut tiny candy dots and gum drops to decorate the house. I opted to use translucent red Nuvo Drops to decorate the roof. For all the candy canes on the card come from the Christmas Borders 2 set.

Decorations – Inside: For all of the red and white candy decorations, I first assembled the candies and then added Glossy Accents to give them shine and dimension. (The candy canes on the back of the card I used clear packing tape on red cardstock which kept the white a crisp white rather than the pinkish white of the of the inside candy.) While the fence of candy canes is from the Christmas Borders 2 set, the peppermint candies are from the Gingerbread Tiny House Add-Ons set. The borders of gingerbread men are from the Christmas Borders 1 set which has a stencil feature to add the white icing decorations.

Sentiments: The “ho ho ho” and “Christmas greetings” are all from the Christmas Small Script word set. The shadows were cut from white and the words from red cardstock covered with clear packing tape to have a shiny appearance. A white label cut using the Crosshatch Rectangles and Labels is a place to write a personal message.

Envelope: Another strip of gingerbread men was cut using the Christmas Borders 1 set and glued to the back flap of the envelope.

Thank you for reading this blog post. I hope this inspires you and makes you smile. Please like and leave comments 😊

Materials Used:

Dies

Papers

  • Carnation Crafts – A4 Double-Sided Paper – Merry & Bright
  • Park Lane Paperie – Holographic Cardstock – Silver
  • White, Kraft, Black and Cream Cardstock
  • A6 Cardbase and Envelope – White

Ink

  • Pigma – Mircon 01 Fine Tip Pen – Black
  • Farber-Castell – Pitt Artist Pen- Bullet Nib – White-101 Marker – Snow
  • Nuvo – Aqua Shimmer – Glitter Gloss

Adhesives

Tools

Miscellaneous

  • Ranger – Glossy Accents
  • Nuvo Jewel Drops – Holly Berries

Macbeth’s Witches – A Halloween Card

| ullycatdesigns

Welcome to our Karen Burniston Products – KB Riley LLC September 2023 Release Blog Hop. (See details at the end of this post for blog list.) The Design Team have come together with Karen today for a fun blog hop to celebrate the release of 9 new dies. Sneak peeks of the new release started last week, and the dies are available to order NOW!

“Double, double, toil and trouble. Fire burn and cauldron bubble…. Eye of newt, and toe of frog,” The infamous words of Shakespeare’s trio of witches casting a spell over Macbeth are the inspiration for this Halloween card.

This card uses a new pop-up mechanism in Karen Burniston’s September 2023 release – Stocking Pop-Up as well as her new Witch and Cauldron and Small Script- Halloween die sets.

(Before starting to make a card, I recommend watching the assembly views for all of Karen Burniston’s interactive die sets. The videos are located near the bottom of any linked page in this blog post.)

Cardbase: I started with a purchased A7 (5 x 7 inches) cardbase and matching envelope. The outer panels were covered with a spider’s web paper and the inner panels with a coordinating pumpkin patch paper. The front panel also uses a border panel from the paper collection that says, “There’s magic in the air.” The back panel has a pumpkin fussy cut from the papers.

Cauldron Pop-Up: The Stocking Pop-Up is a versatile mechanism that can be used for more than Christmas cards. I doubled the mechanism which means placing the lower pop-up mechanisms moving in opposite directions and cutting two upper covering pieces joined to form a platform.

Adding pop-stands from either the Christmas Tree Pop-up or Barn Pop-Stand sets, to the decorative stitched rectangles, allows for a cauldron to set atop the platform with witches attached. Add fussy cut pumpkins to the pop-out tombstone pieces. (I ink blended the white frog paper with a gray ink to make it sooty from the fire.)

In the Witches and Cauldron die set are a strip of bubbles that a white pen can add highlights to as well as an eyeball, frog legs and a bone. The fire is the witch’s hair turned upside and stenciled flames with an orange maker.

Spiders: For the spiders crawling out of the cauldron, I cut four spiders from the Witch and Cauldron set from black mirror cardstock. A 12-inch piece of white polyester thread was threaded with two circles (eyeball center circles from Witch and Cauldron) and knotted to the cauldron. The circles were glued to the underside of the pop-out mechanisms from under the platform. Adjust the thread tension to be loosely taunt and test for catchpoints when opening and closing card before gluing spiders to the threads. (I found the best spots for the spiders were near the ends of the threads.)

Witches: I used the stencil features of the witch’s face die to color in the eyes and mouth. The nose can be folded out to ink the edges with green ink. I cut extra dress and hat pieces so that the backs of the witches would look complete. The blond witch has silver pieces from the hat buckle on her shoes. The cauldron witches’ hats have red hat bands cut from red cardstock covered with clear packing tape.

Sentiments: The card front sentiments are stamped sentiments fussy cut into tombstones and a bat shaped banner. Inside the “hocus pocus” on the platform ends are from the new Small Script- Halloween die set and the “Happy Halloween” is from the Halloween Charms set. A white oval for a personal message is cut using the Crosshatch Ovals.

Envelope: The A7 white envelope has fussy cut pumpkins from the paper collection glued to its back flap.

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

  • Fun Stampers Journey – Witches Brew – SS-0388

Papers

  • Graphic 45 – 8×8 Double-Sided Papers – Midnight Tales Collection – Abracadabra &Pumpkin Patch
  • Stampin’ Up – 12×12 Double-Sided Designer Series Papers – Toil & Trouble
  • Paper Lane Paperie – Holographic Cardstock – Silver
  • Black Mirror Cardstock
  • White, Orange, Green, Red, Yellow and Black Cardstock
  • Paper Lane Paperie – A7 Cardbase and Envelope – White

Ink

  • Ranger – Tim Holtz – Distress Ink- Mowed Lawn
  • Ranger – Tim Holtz – Distress Oxide – Lost Shadow
  • Memento – Fade-Resistant Dye ink – Tuxedo Black
  • Sharpie – Permanent Marker –Fine Tip – Black, Red and Orange
  • Farber-Castell – Pitt Artist Pen – 1.5 Bullet Nib – White-101 Marker – Snow
  • Nuvo – Aqua Shimmer – Glitter Gloss

Adhesives

Tools

  • Die Cutting Machine
  • We R Memories – QuickStick
  • Bone Folder
  • Stamping Platform
  • LDRS – Stampendable Stamping Tool
  • Stamping Cloth
  • Songe Dauber
  • Blending Brush
  • Bone Folder
  • T-Ruler
  • Scissors
  • Needle
  • Thimble
  • Stamping Blocks for Paper Weights
  • Tweezers
  • Craft Clip

Miscellaneous

  • White Polyester Thread

This release includes:

  • 2 new Script Sentiment Die Sets
  • 3 new Border Die Sets
  • 2 new Pop-up Die Sets
  • 1 new Add-on Die Sets
  • 1 stand alone Die Set

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, 25th September 2023. 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

Sue Small-Kreider – YOU ARE HERE

Frances Byrne

Jennifer Webster

Suzanne Smit

Sandy Diller

Nicky Foden

Home Is Where The Heart Is

| ullycatdesigns

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

  • Lawn Fawn – Photopolymer Clear Stamps – Push Here – LF1415

Papers

  • Photoplay – 12×12 Double-Sided Paper – Quilt From Cupid – CSC3460
  • Recollections – 8.5×11 110 lb Cardstock – Red
  • White and Black Cardstock
  • Park Lane Paperie – A6 Cardbase and Envelope – Ivory

Ink

  • Memento – Fade-Resistant Dye ink – Tuxedo Black
  • VersaMark – Watermark Stamp Pad
  • Nuvo – Aqua Shimmer – Glitter Gloss
  • Gelly Roll – Gel Pen – Gold

Embossing Powder

  • Simon Says Stamp – Embossing Powder – Fine Detail – Clear

Adhesives

Tools

Miscellaneous