Christmas Accordion

I think one of the first Karen Burniston dies I ever bought was the Fancy Label Accordion, and it has remained one of my favorites.  It has been so hot this summer that I thought a nice chilly Christmas card would be a change of pace.  Of course, I make Christmas cards all year round.

I added the snowflakes frame from the Fancy Winter Frames and used the individual houses from the House Pivot Panel to create my little winter village, adding the Merry Christmas sentiment to the second and third panels.  What I like about the Fancy Label Accordion (in fact, ALL of Karen's accordion sets) is that you can make your card as long as you want.

Thanks for stopping by today, and I hope you'll come back again.

Birthday Cupcakes

I haven't used the Charm Accordion die set from Karen Burniston for quite a while and figured it was time to bring it out again.  Karen has several new "add-on" dies in her latest release, one of which was the Cupcake Add-on.  These were made specifically to use with the Landscape Rectangle Accordion, but her dies are so clever that you can use them with others as well.

In this case, I actually cut the background piece apart and mounted the cupcakes on the individual pieces.  Also in the latest release were those cute Baking Charms which appear on the small panels at the top.

The Charm Accordion die actually cuts a card 3 1/4" x 4 1/4" when closed.  But, if you use the narrow Sizzix Strip Cutting Plate, it's possible just to cut the square holes without cutting off the bottom of the card base.

I cut two of these and hinged them together to get my 4-panel card.  I added the Baking Charms to the square panels and the charm holders and charms from the set between the panels, hanging them with metal jump rings.

Sometimes it's fun to use a die set in a completely different way.  Little hint:  next month I will have another card using another die set in a way not originally designed.  I hope you'll stop by and see what I did on that card.

Karen Burniston Designer Challenge

This month's challenge to the Karen Burniston Design Team was a little different.  Karen generously provided each team member with two 12 x 12 pads of patterned paper at the same time that the newly released dies were sent to us.  Our challenge for July was to use paper from one of the pads along with one of the new dies to create a card.

One of the pads I received was this Echo Park summer-themed paper, which contains 12 double-sided sheets of colorful summer designs and a sheet of coordinating stickers.

I used several pieces of the paper as well as some of the stickers along with my favorite die set from June's release -- the House of Cards -- to create my card.

For the front of my card, I used the Rectangles and Labels Crosshatch to create my frame for the sentiment, which was created using several different Word Sets and a sticker from the paper pad.  The sun at the bottom is actually one of the dies from the new Small Scenes Bam Box.  The background paper is one of the bold papers from the paper pad.

On the inside is that cool house of cards.  I used 110# cardstock to create the solid-color cards and back-to-back patterned paper for the other ones.  I placed stickers from the paper pad on the solid-color cards and on the card base itself.

I think my daughter will claim this card.  She grabs up almost every beach-related card I create!

Karen Burniston New Release Blog Hop

 Hi Crafty Friends,

Welcome to our Karen Burniston Products - KB Riley LLC June Release Blog Hop. The Design Team have come together with Karen today for a fun blog hop to celebrate the release of 9 new dies. Sneak peeks of the new release started earlier in the week, and the dies are available to order NOW!

This release includes:

• 2 new Charm Sets
• 1 new Word Set
• 2 new Add-on Sets
• 3 new Pop-up Die Sets
• 1 stand alone Die Set

Dies are available to order now on the website.

My card uses the Cupcake Add-on and Baking Charms.  I like that you can add those cute sprinkles by using one of the dies included in the set.

On the center panel I used some of the dies from the Baking Charms.  I just love that little spatula!  The embossing makes it look so real.

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 Friday,30th June 2023. 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!

Here is the list of Design Team members.

Karen Burniston

Lois Bak (that's me)

Sue Small-Kreider

Frances Byrne

Jennifer Webster

Fran Sabad

Suzanne Smit

Nicky Foden

Karen Burniston New Release Day 4 - House of Cards

I've got another House of Cards creation for you today, but this time I used something other than playing cards.  A few weeks ago, USA Network had a Wizarding World Weekend; and, as an avid Harry Potter fan, I used the opportunity to watch the movies again.  I also decided that a Harry Potter House of Cards would be fun to create.  I had to do a bit of "word surgery" on this in order to get the correct sentiment.  FYI - the "wishing" was made by adding the "ing" from Thanksgiving" (Word Set 7 - Autumn) to the word "wish" from Word Set 2 - Birthday.  "You" and "a" are also from Word Set 2.  "Magical" is a stamp from one of the Kindred Stamps Hogwarts-related stamp sets.

Some time ago I purchased some digital patterned paper from Etsy.  I used that paper as the backs of my cards.  Kindred Stamps has several Hogwarts-related stamp sets that I used for the faces of the cards.  

I must say that this card is one of the most fun cards I've ever made.

The new release blog hop is a bit different from previous hops.  It will be tomorrow, rather than on a Monday.  Be sure to hop along with the Design Team for a chance to win a $25 gift certificate to the Karen Burniston store.

Karen Burniston New Release Day 3 - Cupcake Add-on

The second add-on set for the Landscape Rectangle Accordion is the Cupcake Add-on.  

As with the Fence Add-on from yesterday, this card has two panels with the add-on feature and one original panel.  There is a die included in this set that makes the cute little sprinkles on those center cupcakes.

Another way to use this add-on set is inside one of the Tag Book sets.  In this card, I used it with the Circle Tag Book Pop-Up.

On the inisde I used the new Baking Charms on the circles.

Another versatile die set.

Don't forget our Blog Hop on Friday, June 23rd.  You get multiple chances to win a $25 gift certificate by commenting on each of the design team members' blogs.

Karen Burniston New Release Day 2 - Fence Add-on

This new release from Karen Burniston includes two add-on sets to be used with the Landscape Rectangle Accordion set.  There is a Fence Add-on and a Cupcake Add-on.  Today's cards are made with the Fence Add-on.   

My first card is a three-panel one, with two fence features and one original panel.  The small flowers are included in the Fence Add-on, and the vines are from the Monkey and Lion set.

Here is a close-up, showing how the fence is added to the original panel.  After cutting the Landscape Rectangle panel, the ends of the inner panel are removed and the fence is glued onto the remaining pivot strip of cardstock.

During a discussion with the Design Team, Karen Burniston mentioned an alternate way of using this Fence Add-on -- half fence/half original panel.  So I decided to give it a try.  Here is the result.

As you can see, only the center section of the card contains the Fence Add-on.  The outer halves of the inner panels are from the original die-cut.  The flowers on this card are from another new set, Fun Flowers.