Andrea's Review	Kathleen' Review	Melanie's Review	Catherine's Review	Tami's Review

Review by Andrea

Howdy partner! Round 'em up!

Karen Foster Design has a creative team that doesn't quit! At least 2 times per year, there is a new product release of themed patterned papers coordinated with many other embellishments like cardstock stickers and rub-ons. Wow! What a team!

The Cowboy and Horses collection offers patterned paper in the shades & patterns of the old west: red & blue bandanas, rope, leather and rustic brown. Not only are the colors great for photos in this theme, but the patterned paper has collaged "cowboy" words, bandana stitching, coiled rope and even a "WANTED" parchment poster to really emphasize the topic. I received four different 12" x 12" patterned papers & two different 5 1/2" x 9" sticker modules to review. Each sticker module had between 16 - 20 stickers offering a great selection to fit the theme.

I've always loved this picture of my nephew dressed in his cowboy gear when he was little. I've held onto it for just the right papers to scrapbook this cute little boy and voila! Enter Karen Foster Design! The Lasso paper was perfect with the addition of some cardstock stickers and twine.

Title: Yeehaw!
Products used: Cardstock (Prism Exclusives, Rosso)
Patterned Paper (Karen Foster Design Cowboy and Horses: Lasso & Cowboy Tough)
Cardstock Stickers (Karen Foster Design Cowboy)
Letter Die Cuts (Creative Memories)
Ink (Colorbox Fluid Chalk, Chestnut Roan)
Twine (unknown)
Adhesive (Adhesive Tech, Permanent Glue Runner & PVA Glue)

Growing up on a farm in Maine offered lots of opportunity for "horsey" kind of activities including wearing a lot of western attire. This outfit was one of my favorites as a little girl, except for the funky slippers! What was I thinking??

Title: Cowgirl
Products used: Cardstock (Prism Exclusives: Bianco & Nero)
Patterned Paper (Karen Foster Design Cowboy and Horses: Lasso, Cowboy Tough, Red Bandana & Blue Bandana)
Stamps (Making Memories)
Paint (Delta)
White Gel Pen (Uni-Ball Signo)
Brads (Joann's)
Ink (Colorbox Fluid Chalk, Charcoal)
Sketch (www.123-Scrap.com)
Adhesive (Adhesive Tech, Permanent Glue Runner)

I found the Cowboy and Horses collection a really fun one to work with - nice variety of paper and cardstock stickers. My only disappointment was that I found it difficult to find any Prism Prismatics colors to match this paper set. Adding some Prismatics colors to coordinate would be my only recommendation. Check out the Karen Foster Design gallery to round up some great ideas using the Cowboy and Horses collection!

---

Review by Kathleen

I received the four new patterned papers of the Cowboy and Horses collection along with the new Cowboy cardstock stickers and the Horses cardstock stickers.

The Cowboy and Horses collection by Karen Foster Design has been one that I have enjoyed for the past couple of years and was very pleased to find out that Karen Foster Design added to it. The new papers and stickers just add to my enjoyment.

The collection as a whole is a great way to add a rustic look to your pages as well as giving your pages a little bit of country. I received two papers that are designed to look like bandanas. One is blue and the other is red. There is also a pattern that looks like a coiled rope or lasso and one that has a lot of cowboy related words in different sizes and fonts. The cardstock stickers are excellent quality as I have come to expect from Karen Foster Design. The Cowboy sticker sheet has roughly 20 images such as a belt buckle that reads “Rough ‘n’ Tough”, a sheriff’s badge, stars, and spurs. The Horses sticker sheet has roughly 15 images such as a saddle, images of horses, words, and horseshoes.

The following layout uses three of the patterned papers and a sticker from the Cowboy cardstock sticker sheet. The photo is of my son and two nephews who each wanted to dress up as cowboys for Halloween. They looked adorable with their lassos tied to their belts and bandanas tied around their neck.

“Three Amigos”
Products used:
Karen Foster Design - patterned paper, Cowboy stickers, Cowboy mini metal charm
Zsiage - 1 1/2" Scrapbook Film letters
Staz-on - brown ink
Adhesive Tech - Mini Glue Gun kit, Glue Runner
Prism - Prismatics cardstock
Other - jute

In summary, I enjoyed using the papers and cardstock stickers. Even though I used the paper specifically for a cowboy themed photo, these papers would be great for any boy (or tomboy) pages as well as some of those great rustic outdoors photos many of us take. These products are a great addition to the collection and I would recommend them to anyone who is looking for some nice rustic, masculine papers.

For more fabulous layouts and projects created by the Scrapfriends Review Teams, please visit the Karen Foster Design folder in the gallery.

---

Review by Melanie

Cowboys and horses are as popular today as they were when western shows were running on prime time TV years ago. On a recent trip, I changed planes at the Houston airport and knew I was almost home because there were western shops all along the inside of the airport with cowboy boots, hats, blankets, bags - you name it. It's only fitting that there be scrapbook papers that reflect that theme. Karen Foster Design has introduced the Cowboy and Horses line. I received 2 each of 4 of the six papers in that line as well as two sticker sheets.

The paper I received was the Cowboy Tough, Lasso, Red Bandana and Blue Bandana. The paper was high quality and the designs were appropriate and unique for the theme. The Cowboy Tough paper has rustic shades of brown with large words in the design such as cowboy, rodeo, yee haw, etc. Some of the fonts in the paper remind me of the fonts used in old time western signs. The Lasso paper is a realistic image of rope, in a circular stack. The two bandana papers have horses, horseshoes and a rope along with paisley images. The two cardstock stickers are 9" x 5 1/2 " and both sheets have over 15 images each. The Horses sheet has word stickers such as "horses" and "riding" as well as images of horses, spurs, and horseshoes. The Cowboy stickers have images that look like belt buckles that say "all around cowboy", "rough n tough" and "cowboy up", as well as a sherrif badge and stars. They both are tasteful and realistic looking. The stickers are made of a sturdy cardstock and some of the images look like leather. They coordinate well with the paper line.

When I saw this line, I immediately knew what photos I wanted to use for my first layout. My father recently had tons of family slide images put on CD, so I can access photos from my childhood instantly. When I was in kindergarten, we had a western program and my dad took some photos of me before the event, complete with the elastic band of my waist pulled up to my chest. I used a combination of the papers and some stickers from both collections to complete this layout.

Title: K5 Cowgirl
Supplies
Patterned Paper: Karen Foster Design (Cowboy Tough, Lasso, Red Bandana); Flair Designs, Inc.
Cardstock: Prism Papers
Alphabet Cardstock (K): Flair Designs, Inc.
Cardstock Stickers: Horse and Cowboy sticker: Karen Foster Design
Number Sticker: (5) from Flair Designs, Inc.
Eyelets: Eyelets, Etc.
Ink: Clearsnap
Other: Jute
Computer Font: Kabel Ult BT downloaded from the Internet
Adhesive:Adhesive Tech Permanent Glue Runner

We had an unexpected visit with some horses this past Thanksgiving. The horses live next door to my brother-in-laws house, where we had Thanksgiving dinner. I was so happy I had my camera with me to capture pictures of my daughter petting the horses. I used the Cowboy Tough paper and several of the stickers from the Horses sheet on this two-page layout.

Title: Unexpected Visit with the Horses
Supplies
Cardstock: Prism Papers
Patterned Paper: Karen Foster Design (Cowboy Tough, Red Bandana), Flair Designs
Alphabet Stickers: Scenic Route
Cardstock Stickers: Karen Foster Design (Horses), Flair Designs
Adhesive: Adhesive Tech: Permanent Glue Runner

With cowboys and horses being so popular, especially in Texas and in the western states, this paper has so many uses. There was a rodeo in our town this weekend (I'm in Louisiana), and I saw horse trailers lined up along the side of one of our roads. How appropriate that this paper line includes words like "rodeo", as well as images of horses in both the paper and the stickers. This line is suitable for children's western events and dress up as well as both kids and adult rodeo events, horse shows, and western themed parties and events. I highly recommend this line from Karen Foster Design.

---

Review by Catherine

Karen Foster Design is a company that has been around the scrapbooking world for quite some time. The Karen Foster Design papers and embellishments are widely known as high quality products in theme-based lines. The latest line that the Scrapfriends Review Team has been asked to review is the Cowboys and Horses paper and sticker line. Released at Memory Trends 2005, these products include papers named Red Bandana, Blue Bandana, Lasso, and Cowboy Tough. There are other papers in the line, but these are the ones we were sent. I also received two sheets of cardstock stickers which match the Cowboys and Horses line.

For my project with these papers, I had some pictures of my son dressed up in cowboy hat and bandana that I figured would be an absolutely perfect match for these papers. I used the Cowboy Tough paper as my background, and applied two-inch strips of the Blue Bandana patterned paper across the layout. A few cardstock stickers applied as the title and the embellishments complete my page quickly and easily.

Rough & Tough:

Products used:
Cardstock: Prism Exclusives
Patterned Paper: Karen Foster Design
Stickers: Karen Foster Design
Alphabet & Number Stickers: Scrapabilities
Brads: Making Memories
Concho: Unknown – from Swap
Adhesive: Adhesive Tech Permanent Glue Runner

Once again, I have truly enjoyed using the Karen Foster Design products. Using the coordinating papers and stickers makes any page come together so easily and quickly. As always, I would recommend the Karen Foster Design Cowboys and Horses line of papers and stickers to any person interesting in creating layouts within either of these themes.

---

Review by Tami

Karen Foster Saddles up for Fun

So many fun things that can be done with this new line from Karen Foster Design. From the little cowboy who loves his wooden hobby horse to the grown up cowboy working on the ranch or riding in the rodeo. This horse and cowboy themed set has the bases covered.

This set is slightly larger than the other lines released at the last Memory Trends show. This line consists of several 12" x 12" patterned papers and two sheets of cardstock stickers. The patterned papers in the Cowboy and Horses line that I received included a red bandana print, a blue bandana print, a lasso design and a print with a variety of cowboy themed words called "Cowboy Tough". Although I like the overall design of the papers, one thing that I found a bit was that it was difficult to keep the overall look on some the papers when cutting them down. The two 5 1/2" x 9" sheets of stickers are of a cardstock weight and coordinate with the papers quite well. The horse theme sheet features bits of the red bandana print throughout while the cowboy themed sheet incorporates the blue bandana print. The stickers seem to be of good quality with a nice array of designs.

For my project I decided to cut the papers down considerably and do an 8" x 8" page of a friend's son who loves anything to do with horses. Since I wanted to use the "I love Horses" sticker from the horse themed sticker sheet I chose to use the coordinating red bandana print paper on the page. I also added some black Prism cardstock to match the black in the bandana print.

Materials used:
Cardstock: Prism Prismatics (Black)
Pattern Paper and Stickers: Karen Foster Design (Cowboy and Horses line)
Ribbon: Creative Impressions
Adhesive: Adhesive Tech (permanent glue runner)

Although when cut down to smaller sizes the papers seem to loose a bit of the overall effect, this line from Karen Foster is definitely well rounded. It includes a variety of products that easily fulfill the needs of scrappers looking for a cowboy or horse themed products.

For more information visit Karen Foster Design