Karen Burniston Designer Challenge - February 2026 - Love is in the Air

 Hello Crafty Friends and welcome! It's Designer Challenge time once again and our theme this month is Love is in the Air. My card for you this challenge uses the Whirly Wheel, Leaping Animals and Love is in the Air Charms. 

I started by making a A2 sized card base using red cardstock. Then I cut a piece of smooth white cardstock 1/8" smaller than my card base. I used my MFT - Mini Clouds stencil along with Distress Oxide Ink in Spun Sugar to create my background. Then I went around the edges of the background with Worn Lipstick. 

I die cut my Whirly Wheel mechanisms from smooth white cardstock, adding packing tape to make them move smoother. I die cut the notch in the side of the card, so the wheel can turn. Then I added the Whirly Wheel to my card base. 

I added foam tape around the card base and then die cut a notch in the background for the arm to stick out. I added the background to the card base after removing the paper from the foam tape. 

I die cut the frogs from the Leaping Animals and coloured them in with Copic markers. I also die cut the hearts and wings from the Love is in the Air Charms. I coloured the hearts in with Copic markers. I added Glossy Accents to the two larger hearts. Once dry, I glued everything on to the front of my card. 

I stamped a sentment from the new Love Notes sentiment stamp on to a label from the Greetings Label die set. Then tested my card to see it work, as you can see from the video below.

Thank you so much for stopping by today. Below is a list of the supplies I used to make this card. Happy Crafting!

Supplies: For your shopping convenience, all products are linked below. Compensated affiliate links are used where possible with no extra cost to you. This helps me to continue to share all the projects I include on my blog. Please note I only use and share products I love. Thank you Crafty Friends!

Karen Burniston - KB Riley LLC January 2026 Release Blog Hop

 Hi Crafty Friends, 

Welcome to our Karen Burniston Products - KB Riley LLC February Release Blog Hop. The Design Team have come together with Karen today for a fun blog hop to celebrate the release of 10 new dies and 5 new stamp sets. Sneak peeks of the new release started last week, and the dies are available to order NOW!

This release includes:

2 new Pop-up Die Sets
4 new Add-on Die Sets
2 new Lorna Add-on Die Sets
1 new Charm Die Set
1 new Stand Alone Die Set
5 new Clear Sentiment Stamp Sets

Dies are available to order now on the website. 

GIVEAWAY:

To celebrate the release Karen Burniston and each of the Karen Burniston - KB Riley LLC Design Team members will be giving away a $25 Gift Certificate to some lucky person who comments on our blog posts, so make sure you join the hop and comment on everyone's blog post. Winners will be randomly chosen from ALL of the blog hop comments received on our blog posts by Monday, 9th February. Lots of chances to win some goodies, so just leave a comment on this post or any other blog hop posts to enter! Don't forget to leave some way for us to contact you, in case you are a lucky winner!

My card for our Blog Hop uses the new Peacock Add-Ons and the Arch Pop-Up.

I'm not going to lie, this card was ALOT of work, but I'd do all the these steps again in a heartbeat. I absolutely love how this card turned out. Hands down my favourite one in this release. So let's get started on how I made this one. 

I started with a 5x7 card base using heavy weight smooth white cardstock. I went through my patterned paper stash and found this pretty floral paper. I'm not usually one to use paper like this, as I find when you use busy paper it takes away from the pop-up in the centre, but this one worked perfectly with my Peacock. 

I die cut the Arch Pop-Up from a green cardstock and also die cut the Peacock arch piece from the same cardstock. I added both of these to my card base. 

You know me, my peacock had to look realistic, so I found a picture of a peacock and got to work. I started with die cutting the feathers from green cardstock. Then I die cut all the pieces for the tip of each feather. This was a light green, a yellow, teal blue and black. 

Now for the time consuming part lol. For each light green feather tip, I added some Mowed Lawn Distress Oxide Ink just around the edges of each one. Then I did the same for each yellow piece. I just Peacock Feathers Distress Oxide Ink and went around the edge of each teal blue piece. Then I glued each piece to the tip of each feather. This took in total about and hour or more. I was trying to be careful because I just wanted ink on only the edges. It's subtle but it makes a difference. 

I then began adding my feathers to the Arch Pop-Up. Once I had them all on, I was trying to figure how to add the tiny feathers that are on a Peacock from the bottom of the neck up to the feathers. I was going to draw them on and colour them but it looked terrible. Then I decided to die cut several of the smaller feather tip pieces from the same light green cardstock. Then I used Copic marker YR24 Pale Sepia to go around the edges of each piece and add the little line going up the middle. Once I had them all coloured, I began adding them around the base of my peacock. I did this before adding the neck/face piece. 

I then die cut the neck/face pieces from smooth white cardstock and coloured them in with Copic markers. I glued this head onto the body and tested the card to make sure it opened and closed properly. I did that a lot while adding the feathers, just to be sure. 

For the rest of the card, I die cut two pieces from a dark teal cardstock and ran them through an embossing folder to give them some texture. I added more light green cardstock behind each piece to make them pop. Then I added the Happy Birthday sentiment along with the ribbon banner sentiment which comes from the new Strut Your Stuff sentiment stamp. I used the frame from the Whirly Wheel die set to add a place to sign the card. 

For the front of the card, I added more Peacock feathers and some more of the same paper from the inside of the card. I added another great sentiment from the Strut Your Stuff stamp set. I am so in love with this card. This is definitely one to get with this new release. It's a show stopper!! 

Thank you so much for stopping by on our Blog Hop day. Be sure to check out the rest of the Design Teams fantastic creations and please leave a comment with your name and way to reach you for your chance to win a $25 online gift certificate to spend at Karen's online store!! Below the Blog Hop list, is a list of all the supplies I used to make this card. Thank you again and Happy Crafting!

Karen 

Lois Bak 

Sue Small-Kreider 

Frances Byrne 

Jennifer Webster --- you are here!

Suzanne Smit

Nicky Foden

Sandy Diller

Supplies: For your shopping convenience, all products are linked below. Compensated affiliate links are used where possible with no extra cost to you. This helps me to continue to share all the projects I include on my blog. Please note I only use and share products I love. Thank you Crafty Friends!

Karen Burniston February 2026 New Release - Sneak Peek Week Day 5 - Easter Stage Pop-Up

 Hello Crafty Friends and welcome! This is my last Sneak Peek card for the week. Karen Burniston's February 2026 release will be available tomorrow and I am so excited to see what all the Peeps create once they get their new dies. The new release consists of 10 new dies (including one brand new die set and three add-ons!) and 5 new stamp sets. The new release will be available on Monday, February 2nd, 2026.

My card for you today uses the new Stage Pop-Up along with the Grass Stage Add-Ons. When I seen the Grass Add-On, I knew I needed to make an Easter Card. I love the Tiny Trees Pop-Up set and I thought it would be perfect to make an Easter egg tree for my Stage Pop-Up. 

For this pop-up, I started by die cutting the Stage Pop-Up and Grass Stage Add-Ons from green cardstock. I die cut the two trapezoid pieces that go on top of the stage base from smooth white cardstock. Then using Distress Oxide Ink in Mowed Lawn and Rustic Wilderness, I created a grassy background. I splattered it with dark green and black water colour paint and then white Copic opaque paint. I set this aside to dry. 

I added Rustic Wilderness Distress Oxide Ink to the edges of my Grass Stage Add-Ons border, just near the top as the sides and bottom wouldn't show much. I added some polka dot patterned paper to the grass band. Then I set this aside to start working on the decorations.

For this card, I dug out all the Easter dies Karen has. I used the Easter Charms, Spring Animals and Easter Borders. I started by die cutting two egg borders and four of the egg fronts from smooth white cardstock. I trimmed the eggs into four, which, in total, gave me 6 egg borders. I added two of the egg fronts on each egg border, leaving two eggs just coloured. I coloured everything in with Copic markers. 

I then die cut the bunny and chick from smooth white cardstock and coloured them in with Copic markers. I die cut a hopping bunny border and trimmed off a few little white bunnies. Then I die cut the small eggs for the tree. This was the die used to make the three small eggs in the basket that the bunny holds. This was a lot of work, but worth it. I coloured each egg in with Copic markers. 

I also cut a carrot border and I cut out some of the bigger eggs in the Easter Charms set. I coloured these and set them aside. Then I die cut the Tiny Tree. I cut the base and trunk from a dark brown cardstock. Then I cut the tree foliage from smooth white cardstock and added Distress Oxide Ink to add colour to each cluster. I made sure I added colour to the front and back. 

I then started putting my card together. I glued the two trapezoid pieces to the top of each stage piece, then die cut my little slots where I wanted to add my bunny and chick. I also die cut the little paper pieces to come up through the slots. Then I glued the base together. I added the Grass Stage Add-On, glueing that in place. Then I added the Tiny Tree to the top. Then I started gluing on the eggs. Once I had them all glued on, I added Glossy Accents to each section. I had to do this section by section, letting the eggs dry in between so nothing would run. 

Once that was in place, I added the bunny and chick, adding some more of the Tiny Tree foliage to look like bushes. I added my egg borders around the base and added some carrots to the bushes. I added some of the little white bunnies and one of the bigger eggs. I then added my Happy Easter sentiment which I die cut from heavy weight black cardstock, pink and blue cardstock then glued together to make it sturdy and give it dimension. 

Lastly, I added the sentiment on the bottom and the "push" so the recipient would know how to open the pop-up. I show this in the video below. 

This was a lot of work, but worth it!! Thank you so much for stopping by today. Below is a list of the products I used to make this card. Happy Crafting!

Supplies: For your shopping convenience, all products are linked below. Compensated affiliate links are used where possible with no extra cost to you. This helps me to continue to share all the projects I include on my blog. Please note I only use and share products I love. Thank you Crafty Friends!

Karen Burniston February 2026 New Release - Sneak Peek Week Day 4 - Love is in the Air Charms

 Hello Crafty Friends and welcome! I'm back with another Sneak Peek Card for the upcoming Karen Burniston release. This new release has 10 new dies sets and 5 new stamp sets. 4 of those die sets include a new Pop-Up and Add-Ons. The new release will be available on Monday, February 2nd, 2026.

My card for you today uses the new Love is in the Air Charms set. These adorable little charms are perfect for a Valentine's Day card, or Anniversary, or really anything! For my card, I made a Valentine's Day card. 

I started by making an A2 sized side fold card base from red heavy weight cardstock. I used the Postage Pop-Up to make my card and I cut the pop-up mechanism from the same cardstock as the card base. I also die cut the postage square from the same cardstock. 

I used a bone folder to add a fold to my card base. Then I dug through my stash and found a piece of scrap patterned paper, so I'm not sure where it came from, my apologies. I added this to both sides of my card. Then in my paper stash I found an old Recollections paper pad from Michaels that had this great heart vellum. I added that to both sides of my card, then added some pretty heart sparkly ribbon. 

I put the pop-up mechanism together and added it to my card base. I glued it in using Lineco Neutral pH adhesive in a fine tip bottle. If you would like to see the assembly video by Karen Burniston, you can click here to watch it. Once I had my pop-up glued in, I set the card aside to work on the postage square. I wanted to get the decorations on before I added it to my card. 

I die cut the pieces from the new Love is in the Air Charms and I also used the Love Charms as well. I cut the pieces from smooth white cardstock and coloured everything in with Copic markers. I stamped the small sentiment using the new Love Notes stamp set and added that to the smallest square on the postage square. Then I glued down the other die cuts. 

Lastly, I added a label from white cardstock so there is a place to sign the card. I added some Glossy Accents to the teddy bears eyes and nose. Once dry, I added shine lines using a size 10 white Gelly Pen.

For the front of the card, I added the same patterned paper and vellum. Then I added two small hot air balloons from the Love is in the Air Charms. I die cut these from smooth white cardstock and coloured them in with Copic markers. I added little white hearts to the one balloon, these come from the same charm set. 

I used Word Set 9 - Love to die cut a sentiment. I cut it from a metallic red cardstock and a heavy weight black cardstock, gluing them together so that the black added a bit of a shadow under the red. Then I used the ribbon die in the Greeting Labels die set to add a stamped sentiment from the new Love You Phrases stamp set. 

I really love the new hot air balloons and those new charms are so adorable. Thank you so much for stopping by today. Below is a list of the supplies I used to make this card. Happy Crafting.

Supplies: For your shopping convenience, all products are linked below. Compensated affiliate links are used where possible with no extra cost to you. This helps me to continue to share all the projects I include on my blog. Please note I only use and share products I love. Thank you Crafty Friends!

Karen Burniston New Release - February 2026 - Sneak Peek Week Day 3 - Stage Pop-Up

 Hello Crafty Friends and welcome! It's Day 3 of our Sneak Peek Week for Karen Burniston's February 2026 New Release. This release is fantastic!! There are 10 new dies and 5 new stamp sets, including a new die and add-ons!!

My card for you today uses the new Stage Pop-Up and Sea Stage Add-Ons. For this card, I wanted to make a pirate themed card. So I created this fun Pirate card, including the map from the Goonies!!

For this card, I started with a card base that was 5.5 x 6.5. This is to account for the edges of the Sea Stage Add-Ons which stick out when you close the card. So it needed to be long enough to hide those sides. I then added some blue patterned paper, that had a kind of ocean look to it. I downloaded a picture of the map from the Goonies and sized it to fit the inside of my card. I cut it in half and added it to my card base. 

I die cut the Stage Pop-Up from a dark teal blue cardstock. I also die cut the Sea Stage Add-On wrap around from the same cardstock. I die cut the two top pieces for the Stage Add-On from a large piece of smooth white cardstock that I had added Distress Oxide Ink in Tumbled Glass, Salty Ocean and Chipped Sapphire on. Then I sprayed it with water to give a water look. I set that aside to dry. 

I die cut all the pieces for my pirate ship from smooth white cardstock and hand coloured them all in with Copic markers. The only pieces that aren't hand coloured are the black flags. Then I glued all the pieces together to create the ship. I also die cut the small water pieces from my left over Distress Ink water so that it matched the water on the top of the stage. 

Before I added my Sea Stage Add-On wrap around to my stage base, I added the decorator pieces. For this I die cut 6 rectangles from smooth black cardstock. On three rectangles, I added some pieces from the Pirate Borders. On the other other three rectangles, I added stamped sentiments using Karen Burniston's Pirate Sentiments, with VersaMark Ink and white embossing powder. I glued these all on using Lineco Neutral pH adhesive in a fine tip bottle.

Once the water base was dry, I added it to my stage and glued the stage into my card. Then I added the Pirate ship. Once they were glued on, I added my Sea Stage Add-On wrap around. Lastly, I added a label so there was a place to sign the card. 

For the front of the card, I wanted to continue the pirate theme. I thought about doing a "Goonies Never Say Die" sort of thing, but I decided on a treasure chest instead. 

For this, I added another piece of patterned paper. Then I found a different map and printed that out and added to the front of my card. 

I used Karen Burnsiton's Treasure Chest die set to create my Pirate booty and added that to the front. I used one of the labels from the Greetings Labels, which I die cut a black cardstock label and added another sentiment from the Pirate Sentiments stamp set. 

I absolutely love this card. It's one that I may just keep for myself because I'm so proud of it. Thank you so much for stopping by today. Below is a list of the supplies I used to make this card. Happy Crafting!

Supplies: For your shopping convenience, all products are linked below. Compensated affiliate links are used where possible with no extra cost to you. This helps me to continue to share all the projects I include on my blog. Please note I only use and share products I love. Thank you Crafty Friends!

Karen Burniston New Release - February 2026 - Sneak Peek Week Day 2 - Love You Lorna Add-Ons

 Hello Crafty Friends and Welcome! It's day 2 of our Sneak Peek Week. I hope you are as excited as we are about this new release and that you have been loving all the cards our talented Design Team has shown so far. The new release has 10 new dies and 5 new stamp sets. 

My card for you today uses the new Love You Lorna Add-Ons die set. This makes a cute little card for occasions like Valentines Day, an Anniversary or just to drop a note to say "I Love You". For this die set you will need the Lorna Label die set. 

For this card, I started with an A2 top fold card base using a heavy weight red cardstock. I found an old Valentines Day paper pack from Michaels and used some white paper with red hearts for my background. 

I die cut the pop-up mechanism from the same red cardstock as my card base. I die cut the label out from the middle of the pop up. Then I die cut the Love You from a peach/pink coloured cardstock. I used a shimmery red cardstock for the word "love" and a sparkly white cardstock for the word "You". Then I die cut some hearts from different red, pink and white cardstock. 

I glued the pop-up into my card base using Lineco Neutral pH adhesive in a fine tip bottle. I added the decorations to the pop-up before adding it to my card. Once it was in my card and I made sure it opened and closed properly, I added some extra hearts to the pop-up. 

I then die cut several small hearts that come with the new die set and created a border for the top and bottom of my card. I also added some more peach/pink paper to the top and bottom. I added a label to the pop-up using one of the new stamp sets called Love You Phrases. Then I added a blank label so there was  a place to sign the card. 

For the front of the card, I added the same paper as the inside, adding another heart border, this time using larger hearts with smaller hearts. Then I used the Heart - Crosshatch dies to cut several hearts in different sizes to add to the front of my card. I stamped a sentiment to the front of the white heart using the new Love Notes stamp set. 

I like how this is a simple card, but still pretty and perfect for Valentines Day! Thank you so much for stopping by today, below is a list of the supplies I used to make this card. The new release will be added once it is available on Monday, February 2nd. Happy Crafting!

Supplies: For your shopping convenience, all products are linked below. Compensated affiliate links are used where possible with no extra cost to you. This helps me to continue to share all the projects I include on my blog. Please note I only use and share products I love. Thank you Crafty Friends!

Karen Burniston New Release - February 2026 - Sneak Peek Week Day 1 - Hot Air Balloons

 Hello Crafty Friends and welcome! Karen is coming out with a new release on Monday, February 2nd, 2026 and let me tell you, this release is FANTASTIC!!! There are 10 new dies sets and 5 new stamp sets. I can honestly say, there isn't one die set in this new release I wasn't excited about!! 

For my first Sneak Peek card, I used the new Hot Air Balloons to create this beautiful baby card. The new Hot Air Balloon die set comes with two larger hot air balloons and one smaller one. It comes with two different cloud dies and a banner to go across the balloons. 

For this card, I started with a 5x7 card base using a dark green cardstock. I then add some patterned paper that looks like burlap to the inside of my card. I added some baby patterned paper to the edges of my card. Then I added some green ribbon to add some decoration. 

I die cut all my balloons from smooth white heavy weight cardstock and coloured them in with Copic markers. I tried to use the same colours as my baby patterned paper. I also die cut two little hot air balloons from the new Love is in the Air Charms. 

I die cut my pop up mechanism using the Triple Platform Pop-Up from the same paper as my card base. Then I added some patterned paper from the same paper pack as the baby paper. I glued the mechanism in to my card base using Lineco Neutral pH adhesive in a fine tip bottle. 

I used the small banners from Karen's Little Twist Panel Pop-Up to create banners for each corner of the card. Then I began gluing in my hot air balloons. I made sure to double check that nothing was sticking out the side of the card when it was closed. I then glued the two little balloons to either side of the card. 

Lastly, I stamped a sentiment using Karen's Special Delivery stamp set on to a label and added it to my card. I die cut a blank label so there was a place to sign the card.

For the front of the card, I added more of the baby patterned paper. Then used the Oval - Crosshatch die to cut two ovals. One for the background and one for the frame around the background. I added two more hot air balloons to the front and more clouds. 

Then I die cut the "Welcome" sentiment three times from heavy weight black cardstock and glued them together to add my card. This not only adds dimension, but makes the sentiment more sturdy. I used the Baby Charms to add the blocks saying baby. 

I just love how this card turned out. I hope you love the Hot Air Balloons as much as I do!! Thank you so much for stopping by today. Below is a list of the supplies I used to make this card. I will update this list with the new release dies once they are available. Happy Crafting!

Supplies: For your shopping convenience, all products are linked below. Compensated affiliate links are used where possible with no extra cost to you. This helps me to continue to share all the projects I include on my blog. Please note I only use and share products I love. Thank you Crafty Friends!