How To: Christmas Cardinal

Hello crafty friends, I have a card with the beautiful new Candlelight Christmas collection from SCT!

To start, I laid the poinsettia stencil over a piece of Neenah Desert Storm and pounced white pigment ink through the stencil. I then added a coat of Perfect Pearls and dusted off the excess. I cut the panel down to 4 x 5 1/4 and adhered this on to a Kraft notecard. I then die cut a heart from vellum using one of the scalloped heart dies, and cut in half down the middle. I stamped a sentiment using the winter village stamp set using Versafine and black heat embossed. I adhered this using just a few drops of adhesive for a floating look.

I die cut the cardinal three times from red card stock and some of the layering pieces from a darker red card stock. I added some additional interest by adding some dye ink around the edges to darken. I added a black gem for the eye, Matt black feet and beak, then added Glossy Accent to the beak.

I die cut the branch in the cardinal set three times from Neenah card stock and added some areas of brown ink to darken, then adhered these together for dimension. I then die cut the leaves from different shades of green card stock. I darkened the lighter leaves with dye ink and added Tonic Nuvo Shimmer over the leaves. I arranged the leaves behind the branch die cut and adhered to the panel.

I adhered my cardinal to the branch with some foam tape behind the top of the cardinal so it was level with the branch die cuts. I added some red pearls to the branch to finish.