October Karen Burniston Designer Challenge

Karen Burniston just had a special new release of five new sentiment stamps -- just in time for the October Designer Challenge, the theme of which is "Peek-a-Boo."  When she released the Arch Pop-up several months ago, she said she thought it would make a cool monster.  So I took her up on her challenge by making a monster and including a couple of the new stamps from the set Halloween Phrases. The front just has the Happy Halloween w/Shadow set and one of the Border Blends.

But the inside has lots of dies -- the Arch Pop-up for the body of the monster, the pennants from the Graduation Elements, the bats from the Halloween Borders, the eyes from the Mini Ball Pop-up, the Boo from the Halloween Elements, and the rectangles from the Rectangles Crosshatch.  

And you can see that I met the challenge theme by having my monster saying "Boo" when you open the card.  

I was glad to accommodate Karen and her wish for an Arch Pop-up monster!

Karen Burniston Designer Challenge -- Haunted Location

This month's Karen Burniston Designer Challenge is "Haunted Location."  After contemplating the many possibilities of locations that could be haunted, I decided on a graveyard. Last year Karen released a couple of Pattern Plate dies for Halloween.  I used the Pattern Plate - Bats for the front of my card.  

One of my favorite die sets is the Train Pivot Panel, so I put a haunted train going through the graveyard.  The background sky was created by using Distress Oxides and blending brushes. There is a ghost driving my train.

Be sure to check out the haunted locations found by the rest of the design team.  You'll find them on the Karen Burniston Pop-up Peeps page on Facebook.

Aug-toberfest

I was watching the Today show this morning, and they were talking about a current phenomenon I had never heard of before -- Aug-toberfest.  It seems Halloween has arrived two months early.  All kinds of decorations are appearing in the stores in August now.  

So I was inspired to make a Halloween card using the Lorna Label and one of the new Add-ons, as well as some previously released Halloween sets.  It seemed a little odd to be making Halloween cards when it's 98 degrees outside, but what the heck!

 I probably won't make another Halloween card until October, but this was fun!

Karen Burniston New Release Blog Hop

Hi Crafty Friends,

Welcome to our Karen Burniston Products - KB Riley LLC September Release Blog Hop. 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!

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.

I love to make cards for Halloween, so I used the new Stocking Pop-up die and several other Halloween dies (both new and not-so-new) to make my card for the hop.  One of the new Halloween dies is the Witch and Cauldron.  What I like about the witch is that she is in several pieces, so you can use her in many different ways.  In this case, she's standing behind her cauldron stirring the pot.  BTW, the same die is used for her hair and the fire!  Two other new dies are on the front of my card -- Small Sentiments - Halloween and Halloween Borders.  

There are dies from several different Halloween sets used on the inside -- as well as the Stocking Pop-up.  The pop-up mechanism animates those two ghosts behind the house.  The skulls along the bottom and the two Jack-O-Lanterns are both part of the same Halloween Borders set as the spiders on the front.

Here is a short video so you can see how the pop-up mechanism works.

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, October 2, 2023. Lots of chances to win some goodies, so just leave a comment on this post or any other blog hop posts to enter!  

Below are the links to the Blog Hop participants.   IMPORTANT:  Don't forget to leave some way for us to contact you, in case you are a lucky winner!

Karen Burniston

Lois Bak (you're here)

Sue Small-Kreider  (visit next)

Frances Byrne

Jennifer Webster

Suzanne Smit

Nicky Foden

Sandy Diller

Karen Burniston Designer Challenge -- Holiday House

For this month's Designer Challenge, Karen asked each of us to use the Holiday House set.  As Halloween is right around the corner, I chose to make a Halloween slimline card using this die.  Karen has several Halloween-themed dies, so I had a lot of dies from which to choose to make my spooky scene.

For my scene, I started with gray cardstock and sponged some Hickory Smoke ink around the sides and top to give the sky a bit of depth.

Inside the card I decorated the Little Twist Panel twice with some spooky images from the various Halloween sets.

I know the rest of the team has some great Holiday House cards as well.  Be sure to check them out.

Karen Burniston Designer Challenge - Halloween

This month the Karen Burniston design team had a choice of either Halloween or Fall.  I chose Halloween.  I hadn't used the House and Fence die in quite a while, so I thought it was time to pull it out again. 

For the front of my card I cut two Slim Pattern Plate - Bat die cuts and did a bit of surgery to create the background, adding a simple rectangle and the bat from the new Skeleton & Bat set.

With a little bit of help from the Haunted Tiny House Add-On set, the House and Fence set became Halloween-worthy.   Using some of the leftover bats cut from the front background, I added some spookiness to this little scene.  I trimmed two of the spooky trees from the Halloween Scene set, mounting them on the two "tree brackets" of the floating floor.

I love making Halloween cards, and this one was no exception.  Thanks for stopping by and taking a look.  

C4C607 - See Through

The challenge for the Crazy4Challenges team this week was to use vellum or acetate on our cards.  Easy challenge!  My project, however, is not a card; it's a Halloween treat box, made with the Creek Bank Creations Tunnel Card die.  After cutting out the "wrap around" panel using the die, a piece of acetate is glued in the opening.  

They also have a die for the drawer part, but I was able to create it without using a die.

Check out the Crazy4Challenges blog for some more "see through" projects.

Karen Burniston Designer Challenge - "Haunted"

The theme for this month's Karen Burniston Designer Challenge is "Haunted" -- very appropriate for the month of October.   My card is a pop-up with the Holiday House on the front and Jack Pumpkinhead on the inside, made with the Bitty Ball and Character Add-ons 1 - Halloween.

When you pull off that belly band, up pops Jack!   Karen Burniston has Exact Packs of 100 pound cardstock appropriate for each one of the Animal Add-on sets.  I used several sheets from Exact Pack 1, which in actuality is for Animal Add-ons 1, but the colors lend themselves very nicely to Halloween as well.

Hope you like my card this month.  It was lots of fun to create.

Karen Burniston Sneak Peek 5

You can tell I love to make Halloween cards, and this new Karen Burniston release has given me ample opportunity to do so.  Again I am using the Character Add-ons 1, but I made a couple of slimline cards today. 

I became a fan of teal pumpkins several years ago.  These were made using the pumpkin from Autumn Elements.  I also used the Happy Halloween sentiment and shadow.

On the inside you'll find one orange jack-o-lantern and one teal jack-o-lantern.  I tried to use magnets to hold the card closed, but there was too much pressure from the pop-ups, so I cut a piece of orange cardstock to fold over from the front of the card to the back, attaching two velcro spots to hold it closed.  In order to camouflage the white velcro spots, I used an orange Copic marker to  color them.   I added a couple of bats from Halloween Scene and the Boo sentiment from Halloween Elements.

I made a second slimline card, this one just a bit different.

As you can see, the front panel covers just half of the inside.  There is one jack-o-lantern inside.

These new dies will be available on Monday.

Another Karen Burniston Sneak Peek

Yesterday I had a Christmas-y card on my blog; today it's Halloween!  Another one of the dies in the new Karen Burniston release is a re-release of the Iron Fence.  I had not ever seen this die until just a month or so ago, and I was happy to learn that Karen was re-releasing it.

I combined it with several other Halloween dies to create my card.  The front has dies from Halloween Scene and Halloween Elements, along with a new one -- the Happy Halloween sentiment, complete with a shadow die.

You'll find the new Iron Fence on the inside, along with the new Long Nature's Edges 2.

I just love this fence and the way it pops out when you open the card.  It's just too clever!

These new dies will be available for purchase next Monday, August 9th.

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.

Scor-Pal "More Than One Score"

This month's Scor-Pal "More Than One Score" challenge is Halloween/Harvest.  Like lots of other card makers, I've become obsessed with slimline cards.  I was curious as to how a slimline easel card would look and thought I would give it a try for the challenge, as there are two scores required.  I recently purchased some slimline stencils from STAMPlorations -- one of which would lend itself to a Halloween card.

The card closed is 4" x 9". I cut two panels -- one is 4" x 9" (scored at 4 1/2") and the other is 4" x 9 1/4", scored at 9" and gluing them together (overlapping the 1/4") making a panel 4" x 18". This makes the easel part. Then I glued another 4" x 9" panel to the "front" of the easel.

Before sponging on the inks, I punched a circle into a piece of scrap paper and placed it on my gray cardstock.  Then I laid the stencil over the cardstock and inked up the circle area with Versamark.  After removing the stencil and scrap paper, I sprinkled on some detail white embossing powder and embossed the "moon."  Then I laid the stencil back onto the cardstock and sponged on Ranger Distress Wilted Violet ink, applying Black Soot over it to tone down the purple color.  I then added the ghosts (trimming them to make it appear that they are coming out from behind the trees) and the bats.  The witch silhouette and sentiment on the bottom panel come from an old Inkadinkadoo Halloween set.  I applied the bottom panel to the card with foam tape, so that the upper panel would rest against it and stand up.

I was very happy with my end result.

CCEE1944 Halloween

Kelli ends her month as hostess for the CCEE Stampers and reminds us that today is Halloween.  Her challenge:  Lets keep it simple and create a card with anything Halloween or Harvest . . . costumes, candies, spooky things or just orange and black.

I love Halloween and had to go beyond "simple."  My cows are definitely celebrating Halloween in a big way!

Stop over at the CCEE Stampers blog and check out some more Halloween or Harvest fun.

Scor-Pal "More Than One Score" Challenge - Harvest/Fall or Halloween

We have a seasonal challenge on the Scor-Pal blog today -- Harvest/Fall or Halloween.  I recently was introduced to a marvelous card-making accessory -- EZ Lights by Pear Blossom Press.  They are a step (or two) up from the Chibi Lights/battery/copper tape route.  It's all of that (and more) in one little unit.  I made a Halloween Light-Up card for this month's challenge using one of them.  As the challenge also includes a "more than one score" requirement, I made a Z-Fold Box Card.

The fun part comes when you push that little message on the tombstone.  As you can see, the lighs come on inside the haunted house.

I made a little video so you can see how cool this looks.

Be sure to check out the Scor-Pal blog for some more autumn fun.

Trick or Treat Twist Panel Pop-Up

I thought I was finished making Halloween cards, but I decided to make at least one more -- using several different dies and stamps.  The base of my card is the Karen Burniston Twist Panel die, which I love.  The front has some CottageCutz dies, and the inside features some old stamps from my huge Halloween stock of stamps.

As I said, the front is made with several different CottageCutz dies -- the Double-Stitched Oval set, the Halloween Ice Cream Cone, and a Happy Halloween phrase.

The inside is where the magic happens -- with the Karen Burniston Twist Panel Pop-Up die and some old MFP Stamp Shop Halloween stamps.  That two-sided Halloween paper has been sitting in my stash for at least five years!

This may or may not be my last Halloween card for the season.  We'll see!

Karen Burniston Designer Challenge -- Happy Fall, Y'All!

Living in Florida, I don't see a whole lot of Fall -- just that it's not hot Summer any more!  Most of our trees stay green all year long.  But one thing that always comes to Florida in the fall is HALLOWEEN!  I love to decorate for Halloween.  So my project for the October Designer Challenge had to be a Halloween card.   I made good use of some old patterned paper in my stash.  I particularly like the "grass" in this cemetery on the front.  I used some of the Halloween Charms and cut the tombstones from one of the dies in the Halloween Scene set.

The inside is pretty fun, too.  I used the House & Fence Pop-Up and more of the Halloween Charms and Halloween Scene dies, as well as one from the Halloween Elements.

Don't you just love the spider-y paper on that haunted house?

Thanks for stopping by my blog today.  I hope you'll come back again!

CCEE1840 Non-Traditional Halloween Cards

Joanne started her month of CCEE Stampers challenges with a timely one -- with a twist.  She asked us to make Halloween cards, but using non-traditional colors.   I recently bought a cute little stamp set from Kindred Stamps called Off to See the Wizard, and I thought this would be a good set to use -- most of the characters are already in costume.  I chose Dorothy and the Cowardly Lion, and all I had to do was put a mask on each of them and they were ready for Halloween!  And not an orange or purple color on the card!

Stop over at the CCEE Stampers blog to see some more non-traditional Halloween cards.

Halloween Z-Box Fold Card

It's October -- time for colorful leaves, pumpkins, and Halloween!  Halloween is what I'm bringing you today.  CottageCutz has a brand-new release of really cool Halloween dies -- currently on sale at 25% off, along with their Christmas (Part 3) release.

I'm a big fan of fun-fold cards, and my card today is a relatively simple fun-fold card -- a Z-Box Fold card, using two of the new Halloween dies.

To start the card, cut cardstock and patterned paper as follows:

Black - 4 1/4" x 5 1/2"
Orange - 4" x 9 3/4"
Patterned paper - 4 3/8" x 2 7/8"
Patterned paper - 7/8" x 5 1/8" (one piece), 7/8" x 2 1/8" (two pieces)

Place the orange cardstock in your paper trimmer with the short side at the top and place the long side at the 1" mark.  Cut a 1" slit from the 3" mark down to the 7 1/2" mark.

Place the cardstock in your scoring board and score down to the cut line at the 3" mark, up from the bottom at the 7 1/2" mark, and all the way through at the 5 1/8" mark.

Place Scor-Tape on the back of the largest section of the orange cardstock, as shown.

Fold on the score lines and adhere to the black 4 1/4" x 5 1/2" panel.

Cut three ghosts from the die.

Color and construct the ghosts.

Cut the Spooky Garland from a scrap of black cardstock.

Adhere the patterned paper to the card base and sponge around the front panel.  Add the ghosts and garland, and your card is completed.

CottageCutz dies used on this card are: