Karen Burniston Designer Challenge 82: Borders! Borders! Borders!
June 05, 2024
Welcome to the June Designer Challenge with a theme of Borders! Borders! Borders! (Properly said in a Sheldon Cooper voice like Penny! Penny! Penny!)
I challenged the team to create a project utilizing any of our border die sets. As usual, you are going to be impressed with their creations. We're also excited to introduce our newest Design Team member, so be sure to scroll down for that!
For my project I wanted to show an easy conversion of the Palm Tree Pop-up to create pop-up fireworks. In keeping with the theme of this month's challenge I used border dies to create a custom woven quilt background for the card.
Learn how I created this card by watching the full YouTube video here:
My card is a standard top-fold A2 size, but the addition of pop-dots under the woven front quilt makes it thicker, so it may require a larger envelope and definitely extra postage. Eliminate the pop-dots for a more mail-friendly version. The border I used for weaving is the peppermint candy border from Christmas Borders 1. The greeting is our Celebrate word die. The stars come from the Raising Platform Pop-up die set.
The card opens to reveal pop-up fireworks, made by altering the shape of the Palm Tree Pop-up fronds and using a clear transparency for the palm tree trunks. This gives the illusion of floating fireworks.
The same peppermint candy border was used to make the rosettes for the USA banner. The letters came from our Mini Alphabet and Numbers die set.
As I mentioned in the video, this fireworks conversion of the Palm Tree Pop-up is a great one for any celebration - birthday, New Years, retirement, sports championships, etc. The woven border quilt could also be customized to any color scheme.
Here are the dies and supplies used on my card:
Let's take a look at how our talented Design Team interpreted the BORDERS! BORDERS! BORDERS! challenge. In each case you can click the designer's name to go to their blog or social media post where you'll find additional photos, supply lists and, in some cases, videos! Frances is on sabbatical right now but will be joining us for the new release hop later this month.
We're excited to introduce you to our newest Design Team member, Ken Chien. We have been very impressed with Ken's clever creations in our Facebook group and invited him to join our team when Fran retired. Ken is from Taiwan and has a large following in the Lego community but is now crossing over to add paper builds. You can follow Ken on his Instagram @gogoro_bricks. For his first Designer Challenge Ken did not spare the borders! He combined multiple borders in interesting ways to create an underwater scene. Be sure to click over to Ken's IG to see a video of this card in action. So clever!
Nicky Foden really knocked it out of the park with this beautiful card featuring the Tea and Coffee Borders. I love her rainbow eclipse background effect for the front of the card and then the fabulous re-purposing of the Gift Pivot Panels as a tea-themed pop-up. The white pen detailing on the borders and words adds to the whimsy of this great card. Be sure to click over to Nicky's blog for a full photo tutorial of this card. Wonderful!
Sue Small-Kreider is getting a jump on her holiday cards with this adorable 3-page Fancy Label Accordion incorporating the Baking Charms. I love her conversion of the Tiny Gnome into a mustachioed chef. She also cleverly created a shaker oven! Be sure to click over to Sue's blog to watch a video on this creation. Yummy!
Lois Bak celebrates her home state of Florida with this Label Charm Pop-up Card featuring the Beach Borders. There are such happy fun colors in this card and I love the dangling flip flops in the center frame. Click over to Lois's blog to see the front of this card. So summery!
Suzanne Smit styled some of her signature hedgehogs to adorn this very clever Tag Book/Evergreen Pivot Panels creation. By flipping the Evergreen Pivot Panels mechanism Suzanne was able to use it for Sweet Treats Charms ice cream cones! How delightful! The Baking Charms adorn her card throughout. Look at those donut hole protectors! Click over to Suzanne's blog to see the front of this card. Love it!
Sandy Diller went with a birthday theme featuring the cupcakes from the Baking Borders used to make a vibrant rainbow-striped background on the front of the card. Then inside she used the Cupcake Pop-up - one of my favorite all-purpose die sets. The base of the pie border used as a circle border inside the card is a great touch as well. Click over to Sandy's blog for a full supply list. Fabulous!
Jen Webster made a fun birthday Oven Pop-up card featuring lots of scrumptious pies from the Baking Borders. I love Jen's burner placement and the addition of the toaster from the Kitchen Borders to the countertop scene. Click over to Jen's blog to see the "punny" front greeting to this delightful birthday card.
Well we hope you are not bored of Borders! Borders! Borders! but rather inspired to try some of these ideas. Join us next month on July 3, 2024 for our next Designer Challenge with a theme of [REDACTED BECAUSE IT REVEALS NEW DIES!] We will be featuring dies from our next release, with Sneak Peeks starting June 24, 2024.
Happy Crafting!