Sneak Peek - Karen Burniston January 2022 Release

Today we are starting a week of sneak peeks for our January 2022 release. We have nine new dies that will start shipping to stores this week. For those without a local store option, the dies will be available for ordering from our website, KarenBurniston.com, starting January 24, 2022.

Learn about these dies by watching the preview video here:

 

Throughout this week the Design Team will be sharing ideas for the new dies on their blogs. You'll find links to the designer blogs in the sidebar of this blog.

If you're looking for the other dies featured in the video they are here: Photo Collage Pop-up, Nature Edges, Tiny Gnomes.

Next Monday we will have a blog hop that includes prizes for leaving comments. 

Stay tuned for lots of ideas and videos this week!

Happy Crafting!

Karen Burniston Designer Challenge 31 - In Case You Missed It

Happy March!

Our theme for this month's Designer Challenge is In Case You Missed it (ICYMI) where I challenged the team to repost an older Designer Challenge (DC) card and to be inspired by it to create a new version. For my card and video I took inspiration from Designer Challenge 23: Picture This! where I first taught how to assemble the Photo Collage Pop-up die set. 

My inspired version is a birthday card for John, who turns 50 in a few days. I wanted to try the Photo Collage in a clear front card. For an added challenge I also added 50 birthday candles.

Learn how to make this card by watching the full video here:

The card measures 5" x 6" in the closed position and fits nicely in an A7 envelope. The clear front allows the Photo Collage to be seen in the closed position, so some of the photos and candles are attached to the back of the pop-up inside. Other photos and candles are attached to the front of the plastic. For those elements I made sure to attach the same shaped object to the inside of the plastic so the adhesive would be hidden. The "fifty" title was die cut using our Alphabet set with two layers stacked on top of each other for a subtle tone-on-tone look.

As the card opens the elements that are attached to the back of the pop-up "disappear" to the back and the photo collage starts to twist open.

Once open, the interior scene is revealed, with 9 photos attached to the pop-up. The paper is an older piece of Simple Stories patterned paper from my stash. I clipped the "happy birthday to you" greeting from the paper. The candles are made by adding washi tape strips to yellow cardstock before cutting the candles. 

2020 is a milestone year for us. We both turn 50 this year (but I shall enjoy my 40's for a few more months, thank you very much!) and our 25th wedding anniversary is in October. 

Ready to make your own personalized milestone birthday card? Here's what you need:

Get ready for amazing ICYMI inspiration with these fabulous Design Team projects. For each project you may click the designer's name to open a new tab with their blog post. On their blog posts you'll find supply lists, more photos, tips, videos, etc. Click away!

Kelly Booth was inspired by two cards she made for DC22 Beach Day. She combined elements from both cards into a brand new Surprise Ball card celebrating a day at the beach. I love her shaped belly band and the way she used the hexagons from the Surprise Ball as labels on the card.

Karen Aicken took her inspiration from last month's challenge, DC 30 Double! She repeated her clever doubling of the Cupcake Pop-up into a side fold card and then covered the cupcake shapes with squares to convert the card into an any-theme generic pop-up. Brilliant and so pretty!

Sandy Diller chose her inspiration card not from a previous Designer Challenge, but from a fun birthday card she made for a friend using the Gift Pivot Panels. Her new version is for her son's birthday, and features bright happy colors and a mix of dies and stamps. I love how she used an inset of solid orange inside the card to set off the pop-up.

Fran Sabad was inspired by her rocket/train mash-up card in DC 19 Enjoy the Ride for the styling of her adorable Easter card using the Train Pivot Panels. The details in this card are incredible! Notice all the fun cargo in the train cars and the generous sprinkling of eggs for the hunt. Love this!

Frances Byrne made an adorable card for DC 23 Picture This! featuring Frankie, her grandpuppy. She took inspiration from that card to create a new Frankie card, this time with the Tag Book Pop-up featuring designer dies pulled from the Photo Collage set. What a sweet birthday pup and a fabulous card!

Lois Bak found inspiration in the card she made for DC 27 Holiday Accordions. She created a new version of her Charm Accordion card, this time for St. Patrick's Day. I love the addition of the solid front panel to the card. It allows a big surface to add a fun stamp. 

Well there you have it. Another great batch of inspiring cards by our Design Team with a chance to go back and see some gems you may have missed the first time. Join us next month on April 8, 2020 for our next challenge with a theme of TREE.

Happy Crafting!

Thanksgiving 2019 Photo Collage Memory Card

We had a very relaxed Thanksgiving this year with just the four of us. 

We wore comfy pants.

We ate ham.

And just for fun, we made paper turkeys.

I asked each family member to style two turkeys from our Feathered Animals set using their own creativity. No rules or restrictions. I then took a photo of each family member holding their turkeys and documented it all on a Photo Collage card.

The Photo Collage is really the perfect crossover die between cardmaking and scrapbooking. This card could be added to a larger scrapbook page or mini-album, or it could be mailed to someone as the perfect little mini-memory card. 

The card measures 5.5" square when closed. For the front of the card I used our Alphabet and Numbers set plus the Autumn Elements set.

As the card opens the Photo Collage starts to twist and expand.

Once open, all 8 turkeys and the small photos of us holding our turkeys are revealed. It was a bit of a challenge to find spots for 12 frames without catch points, but I eventually got it. 

The Tiny Accessories sets were also out on the table in case anyone wanted to accessorize. As you see below, we have a Saints turkey (John's favorite American football team) a pilgrim turkey, and a graduation turkey.

Learn the assembly of the Photo Collage die set by watching this video:

This could be a fun activity for other holidays, too, styling bunnies for Easter or reindeer for Christmas. Here are the products I used on my Thanksgiving version. The papers are all older ones from my stash.

 

Class Projects - Kaitlyn's Crop Scrappin' Rodeo 2019

This Friday I'll be teaching at Kaitlyn's Crop in Spring, TX, plus setting up a full trunk show at the Scrapp'n Savvy booth. If you're coming to the event come see me at the booth.

The class is sold out, but I'll be there all day to answer questions, show all the beautiful samples, demo, etc.

CLASS PROJECTS:

You will be making two cards featuring our brand new release. First up, a Photo Collage Pop-up card, embellished with the Memory Charms, Border Blends - Argyle and Word Set 10 - Thinking of You.

For my sample card I added photos of our very talented Design Team and then labeled their photos with a Dymo manual labelmaker. 

Next, we'll make a card using the newly re-released Barn Pop Stand and embellished with the Chicken, Pig and Lamb, Cow and Goat, Tiny Accessories 3, Farm Edges, Crosshatch Squares, Border Blends- Party and Howdy die sets.

The Barn is a fun die because it has very easy assembly, plus a double reveal - after opening the card and watching the barn pop up, you can also slide the doors open to reveal a hidden surprise. For our card it will be a cute lamb peeking out. 

To my students - the e-mail went out yesterday with the What to Bring list but here it is again. I also e-mailed you the latest catalog in PDF form in case you want to print that for reference.

• Scissors
• All types of adhesive including: glue capable of making a fine line (crucial for the animals), tape runner, strong double-sided tape like tacky tape or scor tape in any width, pop dots and glue dots.
• Black pen - you’ll need this for nostrils, hooves and tractor wheels
• Gray marker - optional, but looks nice on inside of camera lens - I used a Comic C5, but any medium gray marker would work
• Paper piercer and something to pierce into, like a small piece of foam.
• Quickstik or tweezers - very helpful when assembling animals
• Pen or pencil
• Wink of Stella or similar glitter pen to add sparkle to the heart (optional)
• 9 small square photos sized to 1.25” square if you want no inside black border, or 1 1/8” square for a border. 
• To print photos at home, pull them into Word or a photo editing program like Photoshop, crop them into a square, size them to 1.25” (or 1.125” square) and print.
• If you want an easy way to get 9 photos sized perfectly for your card, use Walgreens online photo app with their 4x4 Collage Print for $0.49. Here’s a YouTube video that shows exactly how to do it. https://youtu.be/KHw-w7FanbA
• Print the photos of the cards shown below or save them to your phone or tablet to refer to in class.

OPTIONAL - watch these assembly videos for the two pop-up dies to familiarize yourself with the process.

Karen Burniston Designer Challenge 23: Picture this!

Happy July! And to my fellow Americans, have a patriotic and fabulous 4th of July.

This month's Designer Challenge has a theme of "Picture this!" where I challenged the team to incorporate a photo or photos into a card of any theme. For my card and video I'm teaching how to assemble the brand new Photo Collage Pop-up die set which will start shipping on July 15, 2019. My friend Rebecca and I have done a lot of fun things over the last few years so I wanted to make a "hello" card featuring photos of our fun activities. Watch the video to learn about this die set.

To use the Photo Collage Pop-up with photos, you'll need 8 (or more) photos sized to 1.25" square. This is easy to do on a computer using a photo editing software like Photoshop or Microsoft Word. However, if you are not technically inclined but you live anywhere near a Walgreens (sorry to my international viewers - you'll have to find if your local drug store will make a similar collage print) you can take advantage of their 4x4 collage print option to easily size your photos to fit. Here's a video showing how:

This card measures 4.25" x 5.5" when folded and will mail easily in an A2 envelope. For the front decoration I mimicked the feel of the inside, adding two more photos and then the camera charm from the new Memory Charms and the word Hello from Word Set 6 - Summer. The patterned paper is an old Jillibean Soup design from my stash. 

As the card opens the collage starts to twist and expand. I must credit our very talented design team for the inspiration to make some of the photo frames in colors instead of leaving them all white. I chose colors that would pop against the patterned paper.

Once open you can see the entire photo collage. Eight photos are attached to the pinwheel spinner. The die set also includes the push pins, binder clips, ticket and the word "smile."

We are taking pre-orders for the new dies now, with shipping starting July 15, 2019 in the order received. We do ship all store orders first, so if you're lucky enough to have a local store, please ask for our products. Here are links to the products used in the video:

 

Let's take a look at the creations by our very talented Design Team. First I want to extend a huge thank-you to Irene Mendes, who answered our Design Team call last year and was selected to join the team for a six month term. She brought beautiful creations to our team and we are so grateful for her talents. She is stepping down as an official team member but we will continue to see her beautiful works on the Pop-up Peeps group and her blog.

Kelly Booth made a special personalized card for her son-in-law's 40th birthday. What a wonderful trip down memory lane for the lucky recipient. Kelly also added extra photos to the collage and used a 5x7 card size so they'd all fit.

Karen Aicken used the Triple Flip die set to create a custom card for her grandson's 7th birthday. This is a great mix of colors, patterns, borders and more. The birthday boy is going to delight in pulling the arrow and watching the rectangles flip.

Frances Byrne expanded the number of photos on the Photo Collage Pop-up to 10 and filled it with pictures of her grandpuppy. I love everything about this card, from the colors to the fun captions to the clever use of the "sweet" portion of the Home Sweet Home die set. 

 

Fran Sabad and Frances both chose to focus on grandpuppies with the Photo Collage this month. Fran made some great choices here, including patterned photo frames and the addition of the dog die from the Cat and Dog. Precious!

Sandy Diller's parents will soon celebrate their 75th wedding anniversary. Yes, you read that right! What a wonderful celebration and cause for a very special card. Sandy shows on this Photo Collage how to use fewer photos to keep the focus on just a few milestone images. I love the border around the inside as well. The Happy Ever After die works perfectly as a card front. Congratulations to the happy couple!

Lois Bak surprised her daughter with a commemorative card from their trip to Sea World. Using the Photo Collage Pop-up not only creates a dynamic exciting card, but a treasured keepsake as well. Lois used a background paper of cork board, for a very realistic bulletin board effect, and mixed in the Sea Animals into the collage.

Summer Hills-Painter created a personalized birthday card for her children's grandmother. I love her choice to use the photo frames from the Photo Collage Pop-up on the Triple Flip. What a great way to make a card also be a gift for a beloved grandparent.

Helen Cryer is currently moving her family across the country but found a little break for crafting a card for the challenge. I just love how she used the Photo Collage Pop-up with bright fun elements for this happy Thank You card. Oh, and apparently binder clips are called "bulldog clips" in England. The more you know!

Shelly Hickox recently moved to a new state and is working on a new craft space. We're so happy to have her back! In this card Shelly uses the Photo Collage Pop-up without the photo frames and instead adds some fussy-cut elements to the pop-up for a dynamic, pretty card.

Such an amazing array of inspiration this month. One thing that the team has reported is that cards that are personalized with photos are much appreciated by the recipients. The Photo Collage and Triple Flip die sets also work wonderfully in scrapbooks and mini-albums. I hope you are inspired to give them a try!

Join us next month on Wednesday, August 7, 2019 for our next challenge with a theme of FUN ON THE FARM. We will be showing off the Barn Pop Stand and related farm dies. 

Happy Crafting!

Karen Burniston July 2019 Die Release Sneak Peek

In just three weeks we will have 20 new die sets available at KarenBurniston.com and at many of your favorite local and online retailers. You may pre-order from our website starting today, but do please consider pre-ordering through your favorite local store if you have one. We always ship store orders first.

Check out the new dies in this collection preview video:

We have also compiled a July 2019 Digital Catalog with all of the new dies in one handy spot. Feel free to download and print your own copy.

Let's look closer at the six new interactive dies in this release.

Train Pivot Panels - the newest in our popular series of Pivot Panels die sets is the Train Pivot Panels. The Train Elements set is the perfect add-on, including the tracks, crossing sign and All Aboard greeting. Our animal dies fit in the cars as an option, and the new Tiny Accessories 3 die set includes a train conductor's hat and bandana.  

As with all of our Pivot Panels die sets, the Train Pivot Panels can be added to the Twist Panel die set (sold separately) to make an extra-dynamic pop-up card.

Family Room Pop-up - Here's a pop-up that's specific . . . and yet generic! It's so customizable to whatever colors/patterns you choose. It has quick and easy assembly and a very impressive reveal. You can also customize it be adding any of our animal sets to the furniture. Add-on sets include Word Set 10 - Thinking of You, Home Sweet Home, and the Memory Charms.

The Memory Charms coordinate perfectly with the Family Room Pop-up, especially for the fronts of the cards.

Barn Pop Stand - by popular request we've brought back the Barn Pop Stand die set. The set has been expanded with extra duplicate pieces (no more double cutting the doors) and a couple of new pieces (hay, grass, window). The barn doors slide open to reveal something inside. We also have a brand-new add-on set called the Farm Edges, plus three animal sets, including a chicken, lamb, pig, goat, cow, longhorn, horse, unicorn and zebra! The Tiny Accessories 3 set includes a farmer/cowboy outfit for the animals and the new Howdy word makes a great greeting.

Triple Flip - our newest pull tab die set is the Triple Flip. It's sized for an A2 card, at 5.5" wide. Pull the tab and all three rectangles flip over at the same time. The rectangles are sized to fit our charm sets and animal dies perfectly. It's shown here with our new Happy Hour Charms and Cheers word.

Here's another Triple Flip card, this time combining the Space, Happy Hour and Birthday Charms and staggering the locations of the rectangles.

Rocket Pop-up -the Space Charms are also a great add-on to the new Rocket Pop-up. This fun mechanism will launch the rocket as the card is opened. The rocket can be use independently as a stand alone element and this pop-up also makes great window cards. The Enjoy the Ride word set goes nicely with the Rocket and the Train Pivot Panels.

I will be teaching a two-card class at Scrapp'n Savvy in Conroe, Texas, on Wednesday using the new dies. We will be making this bright and fun Rocket Pop-up card in class. It also uses the Space Charms, Enjoy the Ride and our Crosshatch shape dies.

Photo Collage Pop-up - if you're looking for a completely generic but massively WOW pop-up die, you'll love the Photo Collage Pop-up. This fun mechanism twists and expands to reveal eight photo frames in a fun collage bulletin board style. The photo frames can be filled with our animals, charms, your favorite stamps, or actual photos. Accessories that come included in the set are push pins, binder clips, a ticket and the word "smile". Great add-ons are the Memory Charms and Home Sweet Home word set.

The Photo Collage Pop-up will also work wonderfully on scrapbook pages or to make a truly personalized card featuring photos. Here's a birthday card where I used pictures of my twins from age 3 to age 20. The photo frame fits square 1.25" photos. This sample also uses the little camera from the Memory Charms set.

Scrapp'n Savvy students on Wednesday will get to try this die and make a birthday-themed card. One frame will be left open for a photo of the recipient. On my sample card I used a photo of myself on my 9th birthday, wearing my favorite Mork 'n Mindy tee-shirt that said "Shazbot". (Nanu nanu!)

Scrapp'n Savvy Students please bring these supplies to class:

• Scissors
• All types of adhesive including glue with a fine tip, tape runner, mini glue dots, double-sided tape and pop dots
• Black pen for pig feet and snout
• Bone folder 
• Quickstik or tweezers for placing small pieces
• Optional: if you have a photo of the birthday recipient, bring it sized at 1.25" square. Otherwise, plan to add it at home later.

We are introducing the collection today as a Sneak Peek and opening our website for pre-orders at 8 am, Eastern time. Our shipping starts July 15th in the order received.  

I am plugging away on assembly videos and will be uploading them over the next couple of weeks as I complete them. The Design Team has been making AMAZING cards with the dies and they are free to start posting their cards on their blogs today, so definitely check out those blogs (there's a clickable list in the sidebar at left) and I also suggest "liking" our Facebook Page and joining our fun Facebook group Karen Burniston Pop-up Peeps. If you want to make sure you don't miss out on any videos, please consider subscribing on YouTube.

Happy Crafting,