Halloween Birthday Card

I have been off grid for a long time, and I've truly missed it!  I went on a small vacation, and with the beforehand prep, the vacation itself, and the clean-up afterwards, it's been almost a month since I made a card!  I was jonesing at the two week mark!  I had received a ton of dies from Karen Burnistons' new release, and I still haven't had a chance to play with them! Most are still in their packaging, unopened!  So Sad!!!!!I hope to rectify that soon!  

Thank you all for your patience with me being gone so long. 

I have several friends/family with birthdays in October.  What better than a Halloween themed birthday card?!  I used several die sets for this card, some for the mechanism, some for the design elements.  The main one is the twist panel pop-up by Karen Burniston.  

For the card I used a 5 1/2  x 11" piece of card stock scored at 5 1/2".   To this I glued a piece of pattern paper cut slightly smaller than the base card.  

I made a panel 4 1/2" x 4 1/2" and did a inked background similar to the ones described below for the inside panels.  I added a tree made from brown card stock, and embossed it with a wood grain embossing folder, then I inked the edges with brown distress inks.

I matted this piece with black card stock cut slightly bigger than the panel and added it to the base card.  

I added the moon, the bat, the fence, and the grave site.

I did lot of inked back grounds on this card.  The picture below shows how I started with picked raspberry in the center of the panel, followed by wilted violet around the edges, and blended slightly with the picked raspberry.  I then used black soot to darken the panels.  Keeping  mostly to the edges, but also blending slightly towards the middle.  I made four of these for the panels, and one for the background for the front panel.  

I cut out a hill in green card stock, and darkened the edges with black soot. I cut two portions from the hill from the same die I used for the panels so that they would fit around the bottom and sides.  

For the other two panels, I cut out two fence sections from the House and Fence pop-up set. I glued it to the panel, and trimmed the edges.  

I then glued theses sections to the twist base.  I added spiders, ghosts, "boo", a bat, and a moon.  

For this card, I used the following  Karen Burniston die sets:

Twist panel Pop-up 
Halloween elements
Halloween scene
House & Fence pop-up
Snowman twist pop-up (for the moons)

Christmas Humor

I've seen a few cards made with Karen Burniston's Flower Pot Pop-up (#1010), and they were all VERY pretty.  I personally, wanted to do something different with this die set.  I've seen some pretty neat ways to change this set up...

Here's mine...

Rather simple on the outside.  I started with 2 pieces of heavy weight card stock measuring 5" x  5".  I added a  2 1/2" x 4 3/4" piece of decorative paper, then bordered it with the chain outline from the Snowman Twist Circle pop-up ( #1012).

Funny thing...The chain starts out as a circle, but I found that if you cut it to open the chain,  you can stretch it lightly, and it'll straighten out.  That piece I glued to the edge of the pattern paper.  

I like the shape of the leftover piece from the chain, so I cut it out in Red, and used the inside piece as a background for my sentiment.  The white part is the smallest circle from that set.  All the sentiments are from Hero Arts (# DC221).  The sentiment medallion is popped up with fun foam. 

The flowers are from the Flower pot set.  Inked, then doubled layered.

I went for Santa legs instead of flowers!  The papers and the sentiment is done the same as on the front of the card.  I just changed the sentiment.  What can I say...I have a twisted sense of humor!  

I used white glitter paper for the snow on the roof (4 3'4" x 6" scored in the middle),  and cut the pop-up mechanism into that.  I didn't want fold-in-fold issues this card, so I glued this to the 2 panels I cut for the front, then added the pattern paper and more chain. 

The chimney is constructed basically like the flower pot with the exception that I trimmed the flaps so they wouldn't over lap at the sides.

I drew a pair of legs and boots out of red card stock, colored the boots black with alcohol markers, added white gel pen laces and cuffs.  I then glittered the cuffs.  

To place the legs, I had originally just cut a slit into the top of the legs and glued it to the cross members in the chimney, but I could see the slit, and it looked bare.  

I then cut the front two cross members out  of the pot, and added part of a cotton makeup circle....yeah, I know...we crafters will used the weirdest stuff sometimes!  I figured it looked fluffy, and it would fold easily.  It did, and it does.    

The flaps are covered with glitter paper, and the chimney parts are red card stock sent thru an embossing folder, then inked with white to give it a distressed look.  

It's a tiny bit bulky, but with a little extra care, it could still be sent through the mail. 

Happy Crafting!

ttfn: Karen