Karen Burniston Dies

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

Santa Coming Down The Chimney

| ullycatdesigns

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.

fireplace-accordionDownload

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

  • Anna Griffin – Treasury of Stamps & Dies – AG691T

Papers

  • Carnation Crafts – A4 Double-Sided Paper – Merry & Bright
  • Craft Consortium– A4 Solids Double-Sided Paper Pad – Candy Christmas
  • Paper Studio – 8.5×11 Paper – Brick Wall
  • Red, Pink, Black and White Cardstock
  • A7 Envelope – Cream

Ink

  • Ranger – Tim Holtz – Distress Ink- Walnut Stain and Aged Mahogany
  • Stampin’ Up – Classic Stampin’ Pad – Cherry Cobbler and Emerald Envy
  • Marker – Ultra Fine Tip –Blue and Pink

Adhesives

Tools

Miscellaneous