March 2025 Karen Burniston Designer Challenge

 

Hi Crafty Friends,

Welcome to our March Karen Burniston Designer Challenge.

Check out Karen Burniston's blog on Wednesday (US Time) when you will be able to see what all the designers created for the challenge this month, plus Karen will have an amazing video tutorial to share with us all.

Our challenge theme this month is ... "LAKE OR OCEAN" - Fish, Cruise, Sail or Row - where will you go?

As you can see by my card above, I decided to select the "Ocean" for my card this month. I was so excited last year when Karen release the Pirate Ship add-on die set to go with the Boat Pop-up die set ... I have quite a collection of pirate stamps and dies here. But because I was ill during that release I didn't get around to making anything with it. So I decided to pull it our for my card this time around.

For my card this month, I decided to create a Slimline Gatefold card. my card measures 4inches x 8 1/2 inches when closed. The pirate ship is just under 4 inches when it is folded in a card. so it just fits nicely. I made up the pirate ship before doing anything else, to make sure it fitted what i had in mind.

I didn't want to just have the pirate ship in the ocean, so I decided to have my slimline card as a gatefold card.  

Here is a better view of the pirate ship, I added three dolphins (one is behind the ship) to the card which are from the Set Sail Borders Die Set.

I added a birthday sentiment from the Pirates Sentiments Clear Stamp set to the Crosshatch Banner,  to the lower left side of my card. I added a pirate hat and sword to the banner both of which are from the Pirate Borders die set.

I also added an anchor to the ship which is also from the Set Sail Borders die set.

On the right hand side of the card, I added the beach scene, starting with the palm tree from the Palm Tree Pop-up die set. Fortunately, like the Pirate ship, the palm tree closes straight rather than at an angle so both work well in a slimline card. 

I added the pirates using the new Paper People die set as well as the Tiny Accessories die set for the bandana hat and eye path and the Pirate Borders for the swords and black pirate hat.

I also added the treasure chest and jewels which are all from the Pirate Borders die set.

I added another Crosshatch Banner to the top right hand side of my card, adding another sentiment from the sentiment stamp set and another of the hats and swords as I did on the previous banner.

I Ialso added another treasure chest to the bottom of the card. You can also see the boy pirate a little better in this photo above.

As the focus of this card is all on the inside, I kept the outside fairly simple. I added the water patterned paper to both flaps and added a belly band to keep the card closed.

I added two more sentiments to the Crosshatch Hexagon panels, along with another sword and pirate hat.

The front flap on the left side of my card is 5 inches and the front flap on the right is 3 3/4 inches, which gives a slight overlap .

And finally I added a panel on the back of the card, as a place to write a personal greeting for the recipient of the card. I added the skull & crossbone border along the bottom of the panel. This border is another from the Pirates Border die set.