Take Wing Cardinal Cards

Good Sunday morning, everyone! I'm so happy that you stopped by and I'm excited to share these fun holiday cards with you.

I was looking at a cardinal out my window the other day, when I remembered that I had a silhouette stamp of these fine fellows from my Take Wing Unmounted Borders & Backgrounds stamp sheet. (Hint: they can also double as bluejays, too!) I thought it would be fun to create a cardinal using some markers and those stamps. I bet you'd like to make some too, right?

First, gather a selection of water-based markers. For the male cardinal, color the entire Take Wing bird image stamp with a bright red marker. Carefully add a bit of black marker to the face area, and color the beak and feet with brown. Finally, a quick "huff" on the stamp to re-activate the ink, and stamp the image onto white paper. Voila! Instant cardinal!

The holly images are from the Gnome for the Holidays stamp and stencil set. To duplicate the look above, color the holly stamp surface with water-based markers. Color the branches with brown marker, the leaves with one or two shades of green, and finally the berries with red. Stamp the images once for a bold look, and then a second time for a lighter version that will give the images a little more depth.

My last card has a little bit of a digital twist!

To create this card, I used iScrapbook to "stamp" the digital image of the Christmas tree from Holiday WOW 2010 onto my background. Then I changed the color of the image from black to light gray. Next, I added two digital bird images to the tree. Changing their color from black to white formed a sort of "digital mask" of the birds.

Once I was satisfied with my digital image, I printed it onto white paper, trimmed and matted it with red cardstock (from the Polynesian 2001 kit), and adhered to a white A2 card base. I stamped the male and female cardinals (using the marker technique described above) over the white bird "masks" on my printed panel. Finally, I added a sentiment from Gnome for the Holidays, and added a bit of red ribbon as a finishing touch.

Well, I hope you enjoyed this little tutorial!  Enjoy your Sunday :)

Julie

**********THIS GIVEAWAY IS NOW CLOSED**********

Happy Sunday, everyone! It's time for Day 15 of 25 Days of Giveaways! Today's kit is from April 2006, the Color in Black & White Club Scrap kit.

This kit contained unique duplex papers, black and white on one side, and a color version on the reverse. It also has the most yummy copper paper! You get everything you see in the photo above.

For a chance at the random drawing, simply leave a comment below. We'll select a winner at random from among the comments and announce the winner on the December 16th post by 10am. Good luck!

The Day 14 Giveaway random drawing winner was comment #57, Az Scrappin Sisters! Congratulations! Please contact Karen at karen@clubscrap.com with your contact information so we can arrange to send you your prize!