Butterfly Landscape Accordion

I was looking through some scraps and found three already cut-out Landscape Accordion panels.  The colors, yellow and black, immediately brought to mind a bee card.  This is the result.

The bee charm in the Flutter Charms was just a little bit big for the cut-out circle in the center panel, so I improvised a little bit.  I cut two of the butterflies included in the Flower Pot Pop-up and a charm holder from one of the charm dies to make my "right-size" butterfly charm.  I was going to have to glue two butterflies together anyway so that it could be seen from either side, so I just slipped that little "charm hole" between the two.

Here are some close-ups of the individual panels.

Those cute little bees on the final panel are from a stamp/die set from Honey Bee Stamps called Busy Bees.  The honey pot is a rather old Stampin' Up image.

This card just proves that you should never throw away usable scraps.  All the stamped and/or die-cut parts of this card came from my scrap folders.

Christmas Train

Earlier this week as part of the Karen Burniston Designer Challenge, one of the other designers Sue Small-Kreider made an accordion card which I just loved.  She took the Fancy Label Accordion and cut it in a similar manner as what you do to the Landscape Rectangle Accordion when you use one of the new Add-on dies (Fence and/or Cupcake Add-ons).  Her card had Santa's Sleigh and Reindeer going through the accordion.  See her card here.

I thought that was such a cool idea that I decided to try a similar technique, using the Landscape Rectangle Accordion and the Train Pivot Panels.

When you alter the panels to accommodate the Add-ons, you normally leave just a "post" down the center, as seen in this photo.

But, as you can see in the photo below, I left part of the panel to support the train tracks.

I want to congratulate Sue for her creativity and thank her for the wonderful idea.

Karen Burniston Designer Challenge -- Accordions

I had a hard time choosing which accordion die to use for the August Designer Challenge, finally deciding on the Landscape Accordion.  After making about three other cards (using various accordion dies), this was my final choice.

The new Fence Add-on gives a whole new look to this fun accordion die.  I pulled out the Backyard Charms and cut four of the fairies from glitter paper and found a sentiment in an old stamp set to tie the entire project together.  This just proves that you should NEVER get rid of an old stamp set just because you haven't used it in a while.

The flowers in my little fairy garden are part of the Fence Add-on set. This was a fun challenge.

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