Halloween card using Karen Burniston dies

Nothing like a new die set arriving in the mail to get me to make a card two months before it is needed. I had so much fun with the earlier Karen Burniston that I wrote about 10 days ago (here) , I ordered her House & Fence Pop-Up set #1015, Halloween Scene #1014, and Halloween Elements #1013. I also bought Winter Charms #1018 which is going to be used soon.

Whoa....thinking about a making a holiday card this far before Christmas?  This isn't like me!

I'm not paid to sing the praises of these dies, I'm just here to say they really do work well. Both the printed instructions and videos on her website, Karen Burniston, will guide you through the assembly. I'm not going explain what she explains so well, I will just comment on what I've done.

First off, the front of the card was done after the inside was finished. The card stock was cut at 4.25" x 11", scored at 5.5 inches. The gray hillside seen below was cut on a 3.75" wide of gray paper. I smudged it with a dauber and black ink. The black fence is two pieces, slightly overlapped. I used Tombow glue to adhere the fence and tape runner for the hillside. The spiderweb is a much lighter gray, almost white. The spider was cut from black paper. His eyes are Nuvo Drops in yellow. I attached a thick but small diameter dimensional under the spider and colored the white sides that might show with a black Sharpie marker. Before attaching him, I used Glossy Accents over the entire spider and let him dry completely before placing him. After figuring out where I wanted him, I used a ruler and pencil to draw a line from the spiderweb, then went over the line with a fine nib silver pen before attaching the spider. I used clear Wink of Stella on the web.

As you open the card, this is what you see:

The sky color began with lavender paper and 5 different shades of Distress Oxide ink over it, Black Soot being the last color blended over the paper. A light spritz of water made the mottled effect. I had paper towel handy and heat set the inks when I liked what I had. Card stock won't handle a lot of water well so the key words here are "light spritz". Because I worried about the paper buckling, I used Skor-Tape but regular tape runner or glue would probably have been fine.

The moon was a 1.5" circle punched from an orangish-yellow scrap and has some orange smudges on it. The eyes of the bat, bird, and the doorknob are all dimensional due to the use of Nuvo Drops. the house also has black smudges and some cracks in it, cracks done with a Copic Multiliner.

The platform assembly is 4" wide. I cut a piece of light brown paper 4" wide and tore off the bottom half. The stamped greeting is from Simon Says Stamp (SSS101444 Trick or Treat).  The gray hands are cut from the same paper as the spiderweb. I just liked them so they are where they are, just to draw attention to the greeting.

The ghost just did not photograph well. I guess craft ghosts are just like the real ones in not being photogenic. The ghost was cut on Vertigo Pebbles by Imagine Crafts. The card did take a while to complete, but a lot of my time was experimenting with inks and trying out placement. I plan to make another card very similar to this and the background is already done.

One last picture, shot from overhead to show the spacing between elements inside the card.

Seawall Scarf

I recently finished this scarf and I am very happy with how it turned out. The name of the pattern is Seawall. If you have a Ravelry account (a free website if you are not already registered), the pattern can be found here. The pattern designer is Louise Zass-Bangham.

More photos are available at the Ravelry site. These are mine:

This was an easy scarf to knit. It calls for one main color and 5 additional accent colors. The scarf begins with that long column of colored rectangles. When it reached 5 feet, I bound off and picked up stitches along one long side. Yes, it was a lot of stitches but the pattern tells you how many to pick up in each color block and how many at beginning and end. You knit a few rows in the main color, charcoal in my scarf, the place those stitches on a cable holder.

You pick up the same number of stitches on the opposite side and knit to your desired width. Directions explain how to create a turning row and why you will knit a few more rows in your main color before beginning the stripe sequence for what I think of as the back side of the scarf. I love those skinny stripes and will probably make a scarf completely out of those stripes. The "back side" is no less lovely than the front of the scarf and what a stash buster this would be! 

Once the back side is the same width as the front, you are ready for a 3-needle bind off. You pick up stitches on the short ends of the scarf, knit a few rows and do a 3-needle bind off on both ends. The scarf is a long tube that is closed on three sides by this bind off method, requiring no hand sewing to finish. 

The yarns I used were a combination of Swans Island washable merino wool and Rowan Super Fine Merino. 

Money gifts

I never give our great nephews or great niece a simple check or cash in a card on their birthdays. Search for "Money as gifts" in the side bar under Search This Blog to find other examples of what I've done in the past.

This presentation took some time, but I had fun with it. Josh, the birthday boy, was 12 this past February. I gave him a box of straws. Unfortunately, the photos of the wrapped and initially opened box of straws have disappeared. The box contained over 60 drinking straws, all painted red, but only some had money in them. 

First I tried rolling up dollar bills and fitting them into a regular plastic drinking straw. This was really difficult. At my husband's suggestion, I rolled them up tightly around a wooden skewer and inserted them into straws from McDonald's and Wendy's because they are wider in diameter. Don't ask why I had this many straws on hand. You'll think I'm a Coke addict. 

Once I had the bills inside of straws, I wasn't happy that they were visible. I wanted Josh to inspect every straw, not easily see which ones had the cash. 

There was only one thing to do, right?  Paint them!  Since the straws have a red stripe, red was the logical color. I put skewers back into the straws and placed the painted ones over shoe box lids to dry. Once dry, I removed the skewers and placed all of the straws and lots of shredded paper in a large box to wrap as a gift. We have a paper shredder at the house and I used wrapping paper that I did not like to create the filler.

Josh enjoyed the challenge of finding the cash straws and working them out of their confinement. 

And for the record, I'm not a Coke addict. I'm a Diet Coke aficionado.

Karen Burniston pop up dies

I have attempted this type of pop up card in the past, all done by measuring, scoring and cutting manually. I only had fair results until I saw these dies while looking for something else online. Oh boy, do I love using Karen Burniston's pop up dies! Visit her website (here) to see samples, watch the how-to videos and shop.

The first card is for my brother-in-law. The die set is Twisted Panel Pop Up Die set, #1009. The stamp set used is Birthday Laughs #1 by Catherine Scanlon Designs.

As you begin to open it, you see part of the mechanism that makes this work. A simple cut of the green layer is done with a die, and the folded green arms are another die cut that are folded and glued into place.

The card, fully open, is so cute and magical to those make cards themselves. I love that they think I worked so hard. In reality, I shopped and followed instructions!

The next two photos are my attempt at showing you the mechanism from different angles.  The four black panels holding the stamped images on white paper are part of the die set. It really is easy to assemble following the video tutorial.

I also bought the Flower Pot Pop Up Die set, #1010, but don't have a finished card from that set yet. I did use the floral dies and flower pots from that set in conjunction with the Twisted Panel Pop Up Die set to create this card.

The Happy Birthday greeting is a new die from Stampin' Up. The papers are various ones from my stash. I used some Tim Holtz Distress Oxide ink on the flower pots to age them a bit.

The bee was cut once out of yellow paper and once out of black. The stripes and black head were done with a black marker. I sandwiched a length of wire from a twist tie between the two bee shaped pieces, the attached the opposite end to a piece of scrap paper and glued that to the backside of one of the pots.

I haven't added an inside message yet but I think I will make a plant stick (stake?) that will say "best wishes" and my name and add that to one of the pots on the right.

I think this die set is going to get a lot of use. I'm already looking at another one that is calling my name.