Christmas Cardinal

Happy Friday!  It's Jeanne today with a card using the Christmas Cardinal from the new Christmas release and an older die, Birch Trees.  I plan to send this card to a neighbor who collects cardinals.  She frames any cardinal Christmas cards she receives and displays them over the holidays.

This card would also make a wonderful masculine birthday card - just change the holly behind the bird to less seasonal greenery.  The Seasons Floral 1 and 2 dies have some lovely pine cones and leaves that would work well.

I cut all the pieces from white cardstock and shaded the cardinal and birch trees using Distress Oxide inks. The rest were colored with  Copic markers.

To get shading under some of the feathers, I used a small piece of paper slipped into one of the slits on his wing as a mask.  This is a nice way to add depth to your die cuts.

I created a misty background using two shades of DO gray ink on a 4.25 x5.5 inch panel.

My birch trees are shaded with the same grays.

To create the card, I cut half an inch off the side of the panel so is is now 3.75 x 5.5 inches and added a thin strip of gold washi tape.  On an A2 card base I glued a .75 inch strip of plaid paper.

After adhering the panel to the card base, I glued the birch tress and greenery.

I added some gold thread, then popped the cardinal off the card using foam dots.

Dies:

Thanks for joining me today.  I hope you have a fun and creative weekend!

Group Post Samples

Hello Scrapping Cottage friends! Thanks for taking the time to stop and visit today. We are sampling DT cards for the next several Mondays using dies from the Christmas Part 2 release.

There are 34 new designs in this release. This release has something for everyone. So if you prefer a more religious tone to your cards- we have you covered. If you like a more whimsical design featuring Santa, reindeer, gnomes, moose or even a hot chocolate theme you will find some really cute dies.

We thought you might like to have some new and creative ideas for your Christmas cards using the Part 2 dies. So let's get started with the cards for today.

Sample 1: Our first sample for today is from Anja Zurga. She used the Nativity w/Donkey die to create this beautiful card that represents the meaning of Christmas. The nighttime sky was created by cutting a circle and coloring it with distress oxide inks, and for the stars she sprinkled a mixture of perfect pearls and water. It gives the appearance of looking out from the stable into the night sky.  To give the die cuts a bit more dimension, she popped them up on brown foam.

Sample 2: Our next sample is from Pam MacKay. She used the Christmas Cardinal die to create her card.  It's a classic style Christmas card that incorporates the cardinal, plaid and doily. The oval doily gives it such a retro vibe and for added interest she raised the cardinal off the background to give it a bit of dimension. If you haven't started on your cards as yet, this one would be easy to mass produce and the die is available. 

Sample 3: Our last sample for today is from Sukie Dhillon. She used the Santa Workshop die to create this whimsical card. The bright and cheery die cuts pop against the embossed snowflake background.  The snow mound was perfect for anchoring the sentiment pole.  This card is perfect to tuck in with a toy gift for the special kiddo in your life.

Well, that's our samples for today. I hope the team has given you some fresh ideas on ways to use these dies.

dies used to create cards:

Wishing You a Very Merry Christmas!

Hello!  This is Sukie and today I'm sharing a card for my design team post.  The beautiful Christmas Cardinal is the from the Christmas Part 2 die release and is one of my favorite dies from this release.

For my card base, I went with a basic color palette and fussy cut the pieces for the fence.  I heat embossed a sentiment from the Scrappy Moms (retired) Merry & Bright stamp set on a hand cut flag.

I layered the fence posts onto my card base building the fence along the bottom edge. Next, I splattered the background with some white paint for a snowy affect and matted it on a black card base.

I cut out the Christmas Cardinal in white card stock and used my Oxide Inks to shade all of the pieces.  I went with the traditional red theme for this sweet bird.

The cardinal was perched on the snowy fence as the focal point of my card.  I love the way he pops against the neutral background.

The embossed sentiment was added above the cardinal as the final finishing touch on my card.

Here is the die set used on my card, available in the store: