Christmas in July with Country Christmas Layered Die Cuts and CutCardStock

Do you start your Christmas cards early? Perhaps during all the hype over Christmas in July? I make Christmas cards all year round for my stash. I received two Christmas in July presents I am sharing on my cards today. I was asked to join the CutCardStock Design team and received a big box of cardstock!  And Spellbinders sent me some of the gorgeous new Country Christmas release by Annie Williams. 

I am sure you agree you can never have enough cardstock, right? And so you will want to check out the CutCardStock website for quality white and colored cardstock of all kinds at great prices. I decided to feature their Neenah Classic Solar Crest cardstock, black linen and and scenes from their Winter Wonderland Prints on my bridge card. 

I love layered die cuts like the Country Horse Drawn Wagon from Annie Williams but sometimes I don't have the time to cut all the pieces out in different colors. I decided to make my die cut images silhouettes and love the look. 

If you would like a detailed tutorial on how I made this card (and get much more inspiration there too!), visit the CutCardStock blog here.

I had so much fun creating the bridge card with silhouettes above, I created a second card. This one features Spellbinders Country Snowman with his friends, blue linen cardstock and another beautiful print from the Winter Wonderland pad both from CutCardStock.  

Cardmaking Joy & Hugs, 

Karen 

Waffle Flower's Sneak Peak Hibiscus Cluster Stencils and Dies

When you join the Waffle Flower Sneak Peak Club, each month you will receive stencils, dies and sentiment strips that will be released the next month for everyone else to purchase. Not only did we receive the gorgeous Hibiscus Cluster Die Set and layering stencils to easily color them, we also received sample card and color inspiration which I used to make this card. We also have access to exclusive Facebook inspiration which also inspired me to go so bold in my color choices for this card. I loved it so much I repeated the color choices in this card:

The sentiment strips included make it so easy to add sentiments to our cards. Here is one I did in shades of purple:

It is so easy to make gorgeous cards with this set! You can join the Sneak Peak Club anytime or wait until early August to purchase these dies along with the rest of this release.

Cardmaking Joy & Hugs, Karen 

More Foiling Magic From Therm O Web, Gina K and Picket Fence Studios

I made this card with Beautiful Flourish Foil-Mates from Gina K and Therm O Web for the first pass through the Mini Minc and then attached the remaining foil to a Picket Fence Studios Fabulous Foiling Toner Cardstock in yellow and oranges. This card is a Double Interlocking Gatefold Panel card I learned how to make from Dawn Griffith and it opens like this:

The colored toner cardstocks mean we aren't limited to white and black on the 2nd generation foiling. Both of the next two cards feature the Harvest Texture Foil-Mates and colored toner cardstock from Picket Fence Studios:

One more new product I feature in my new video this week (plus how to make an amazing pop up box card), is see through foils like Brutus Monroe Magical Shattered foil which works amazing on Fabulous Foiling Toner Cardstocks like this one called Birthday Bash:

The dies and stamps on this Epic card are from the new release at Karen Burniston. 

I had so much fun playing with the new/old Foil-Mates just re-released by Therm O Web and other newer foiling products now available for toner foiling magic. 

Cardmaking Joy & Hugs, Karen 

Amazing Pop Up Box With New and Old Toner Foiling

The first time I ever saw foiling magic was when I watched Gina K show how to use her Foil-Mates and toner foil in a Therm O Web booth at a stamp show. I fell in love and purchased many of them. All of Gina’s Foil-Mates have just been re-released and I now own all of them again. In my new video, I share how to use new and old techniques and foiling products with them, and then share an amazing pop up idea you will want to try! Here is the card I made step by step in my new video:

I created the gorgeous foiled pieces with  the new/old Bountiful Flourish Foil-Mates from Gina K Designs and Therm O Web and an ombre colored Picket Fence Studios Fabulous Foiling Toner Cardstock. Guess what happens when the top part is twisted in the direction of the arrow? 

Very hard to show with still photos, but the box pops up! You will want to watch the full video to see all the foiling magic and how to make this box, but here is a mini video with several more cards I made with the same amazing pop up box idea:

(If you can't see the mini video, click on the title and go to the actual blogpost.)

I learned how to make this pop up box from the Vintage Journal on Tiktok. Here are some still pictures of the other two cards I made with pop up boxes:

As I explain in the new video, I show new products now available to make foiling with the re-release of Gina K's Foil-Mates even more fun. The first card above features Brutus Monroe's Magical Shattered Glass Foil which is see through and adds amazing foiled highlights to Pinkfresh Studios Fabulous Foiling Toner Cardstocks. The toner cardstocks are in many different colors rather than the usual white and black choices. The Christmas version was made with the new/old Holiday Flora Foil-Mates and red and silver foil. 

Cardmaking Joy & Hugs,

Karen

Spellbinders Country Rocking Chair Double Accordion Gatefold

The new Country Christmas Collection by Annie Williams at Spellbinders is full of comfort and warmth, and the Christmas Rocking Chair is featured on this card I made. I wanted to try making a Double Accordion Gatefold card but the template I had from Stamp With Tami made an A2 card. I adjusted the template to make a 5x7 so the front fold over piece was large enough for the rocking chair. Here is what happens when the card is opened:

The gatefold sides open up to reveal the folded card base center. Here is a closer look at the tree and Santa boots die cut I added to the pretty 49 and Market cardstock:

Cardmaking Joy & Hugs, 

Karen 

Arch Pop Up Cards Sure to Amaze and Delight!

Can you imagine opening up a card and seeing this lovely arch full of butterflies and balloons pop up? I created this card with the brand new Arch Pop-up Die set from Karen Burniston. The gorgeous cardstock and sentiments are from the Reef Card Kit at Club Scrap. Here is the front of the card with more paper and sentiments from that kit:

This card would be perfect for the 4th of July or any celebration using Karen's Fireworks Die Set and sentiment die. And just look at what pops up when the card is opened:

To see all the new dies in this release, just click this link.

Crealies Spinner Dies In Three More Creative Ways

 A couple months ago Crealies released 3 sets of spinner dies. After I created circle, square and diamond spinner cards for my April 14^th video and blogpost, I knew I wanted to find time to make different types of cards with these innovative die sets. In my video here, I share a vertical standing easel card, a see though spinner card and how to make this surprise inside pop up card step by step:

 Here is a couple views of the see through Bee Happy Birthday card I made with the Square Spinner die set:

And here is another way to create with these spinner die sets – a standing easel card with a floating set of dolphins and warm wishes:

I hope you will watch the video here and my cards inspire you to give some of the ideas and products a try. Here is a link to the release with all the spinner dies and some of the butterflies as well. 

Whirly Wheel Magic

One of the most amazing dies in the new release by Karen Burniston is the Whirly Wheel die. Just look at what happens when the wheel on the right is turned:

The unicorn flies and reveals a hidden message! The perfect stamps and the unicorn are also part of this release. Here is another card I created for my grandson who currently loves Minecraft:

I attached the Minecraft napkin to cardstock with my Minc and plastic wrap and printed the images. Just about anything can pop up using the Whirly Wheel die:

The cute frogs here are part of the new Leaping Animals set and the grass is one of the Curved Edges die set. Both can be found here on the Karen Burniston website.

More New Ways to Eclipse

In my new video here, I shared many eclipse cards made with new slatted dies I bought from Ebay out of the UK. The dies are in high demand and often out of stock, so I went through my dies and made some eclipse cards with layering dies like this one:

I used some stitched layering pennant dies from Gina Marie Designs on this one and one of the pennants and some stitched strips from Taylored Expressions on this card:

I made this card with some new layered Essential Triangles from Ellen Hutson and the layered sentiment dies are from Crealies. Evan a picket fence can be eclipsed like I did on this card:

The Picket Fence die is from Fabulous Folded Cards (Hot off the Press) and here is a bonus card I made also with this die set:

Deep Impressions June Class Cards

I taught three classes of students the Deep Impressions technique at Harts n Scraps this week, and I think this card was everyone's favorite. The technique is something I learned years ago from Fran Seiford of Stampendous and it involves melting layers of embossing powder on chipboard on an electric griddle. If you would like to see how it is done, watch this video I made a while back for my YouTube channel. 

But years ago, we didn't have Embossing Glazes from Tim Holtz and these hearts were made with the translucent aqua blue embossing glaze and some copper highlights. IRL they are just gorgeous. The speckled background was created with Pixie Spray and gold foil. 

Here are the other three cards I taught:

I never just teach a technique and then slap them on a card, so I showed them several fun folds and an easy way to make a shaker card. We all had fun!

New Ways To Eclipse!

Have you seen the buzz over the new way to make eclipse cards? I started seeing cards with popped up slats and thought I just have to get those dies and try it. But the dies are very hard to find in stock and when I did finally get them, there was a learning curve which I will save you from as I share many cards in my new video here. 

I have always been fascinated by the eclipse look on my cards with the background pattern continuing on raised images. Recently I saw much excitement over cards being posted  by Eileen Walters out of the UK and others. Eileen sells her dies on Ebay out of the UK here, but they are often sold out as the demand is high and they are only available in the UK for now. 

I tried raising the slats with the foam strips I had but they were too wide and showed as I shared in the video. You can use other dies as I also share and will post later this week on the blog. But I was determined to figure out how to raise the slats evenly and show how I do it and made this card step by step:

To make any of these eclipse cards, you need to start with two pieces of identical cardstock. You can stamp on them or print an image or use patterned paper as I have done on most of the cards I share. Here is another one I loved how it turned out:

And here is one more I made with these dies and foiled Foil It sheets from Taylored Expressions: