Darkroom Door and Karen Burniston Blog Hop

Hi friends! We have another sunny day here and although we enjoy the warm weather, it needs to rain. The Darkroom Door Inspiration Team is teaming up with the Karen Burniston team for a fun blog hop. I am happy to take part in this fun hop! You should have arrived here from the very creative Shelly Hickox.

Both Darkroom Door and Karen Burniston will be giving away a prize packs, with winners randomly chosen from ALL of the blog hop comments received by Sunday, July 29th, 2014. Lots of chances to win some goodies, so just leave a comment on this post or any other blog hop post to enter!

I made a fun garden birds accordion birthday card and really enjoyed combining Darkroom Door stamps with two great die sets from Karen Burniston. I used the Darkroom Door Garden Birds, Grevilleas and Birthday Sentiment sets, together with Karen Burniston's Charm Accordion and Tree Pop-up. The card is much easier to make than what it might look like. Let's start.

These are the two die sets that I used: the Charm Accordion and the Tree Pop-up, both have lots of fabulous little details. 

Start by die cutting two Charm Accordion panel pieces, as well as the coordinating pieces that you see here - squares, charm frames and joints. I used watercolor paper.

Apply a tiny bit of Distress Micro Glaze around the edges in particular, as well as here and there for clouds. If you don't want the resist effect, you can skip this step.

Smear Distress Inks on a non-stick craft sheet. I lined them up, starting with the lighter Crushed Olive and below it Mowed Lawn. The blues were lined up with Tumbled Glass first (above the Crushed Olive), then Mermaid Lagoon and last Blueprint Sketch. This creates the look of a summer nature scene. Mist with water and press the paper into the ink. Repeat for the other pieces. Color the front of one of the panels too, for the front of the card.

I have a thing for trees and this one, from the Tree Pop-up set is stunning. There are also leaves and flowers that you can use to turn the tree into a tree for any season. I was going to use only the branches.

Smear Distress Inks on a craft sheet, mist with water and press the paper into the ink. When the ink was dry, I used a Distress Crayon to add texture.

The Garden Birds set is designed by Godelieve Tijskens and the birds are adorable. They come in two sizes and I used the small ones. There are also three larger birds in the set. Stamp all the small birds on watercolor paper with a waterproof ink.

I used a bird book and colored the birds like real garden birds, using Distress Inks. Press the inks on a craft sheet to create a palette, mist with water at the edge of each ink color and then pick up with a paint brush. Misting with water at the edge only, makes it easier to vary the amount of water, so that you can get stronger and weaker shades of each color.

When dry, use one of the Grevilleas stamps as grass. Mist the stamp with water after inking, for a watercolor look.

Die cut charms and paint them with Distress Inks. I also used a star, but forgot to include it here. Aren't the shapes cute?

Color the frames with Spiced Marmalade and color two pieces of watercolor paper orange and yellow, using the same technique as above.



Die cut tiny flowers from the colored papers using the sweet flower die from the Tree Pop-up set. I love tiny flowers and these are so cute. Shape them a little with the Tonic Craft Tool set.

Condition the paper a little by folding along the score lines and then opening and closing each part of the card. Adhere the three charm frames as you see above.

Use three or four joints at the back of the paper to adhere the two accordion panels together.

Here's a look on the charm frames from the back to give you an idea of what the assembly looks like.



You can die cut paper jump rings with the Charm Accordion set, but I used real ones instead.



I layered a square panel on each larger panel and glued a branch and a bird on top. This is a Blue Tit.

The Birthday Sentiment is full of great birthday sentiments. Stamp some of them and cut into strips.

When you fold the card up, it creates a very cute little card which can easily be sent by the mail. The first bird then flips to the front as seen here. I added a sentiment and another bird to the front too.

Here's a better look at the Distress Micro Glaze resist effect.

You could also hang something else in the little frames, but the charms are really cute.

The next bird in the happy little crowd. It's a Great Tit.

The Garden Birds are really cute and I love the fine lines in the stamps. It's a European Robin.

This is meant to be a European Goldfinch.

The Grevilleas set is wonderful, and some of the stamps work great as grass.

Glue the little flowers here and there using Distress Matte Medium.

Glue a couple of birds in the grass too. You can never have too many birds on a card. :)

Here's a peek at the star charm, which hangs in the middle, where the two panels join.

Here's a look at the card from above. I love interactive cards like these, which can also be displayed by the recipient.

Your next stop on the hop is Mary Prasad who has more fun inspiration to share with you.

Hop list

Darkroom Door / Rachel Greig

Karen Burniston & Tanya Kostynuk

Belinda Spencer

Summer Hills-Painter

Teresa Abajo

Karen Aicken

Anneke De Clerck

Frances Byrne

Godelieve Tijskens

Shelly Hickox

Anna-Karin Evaldsson (you are here)

Mary Prasad

Robyn Wood

Fran Sabad

Connie Mercer

Kelly Booth

Autumn Clark

Helen Cryer

Kymona Tracey

Thank you so much for stopping by here today! Don't miss all the inspiration along the hop!

Happy crafting!

Anna-Karin

Supplies:

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