Christmas tag with cardinal by Tim Holtz

About a week ago I have posted my Christmas cards featuring a cardinal by Tim Holtz. After finishing the cards, I decided to make a tag as well, but this time I wanted to colour the bird with acrylic paint instead of ink.

Well, as I said, used paints to colour the bird. I used DecoArt Americana and Distress paints too. The main piece of the bird was painted dark brown and as you can see the rest were painted red, black and yellow. To the tail - which was brown - I added a layer of red.

The tag was cut out with an old Sizzix Bigz die, Tag&Bookplates (656938) from white paper. I started to ink the tag, first I added Lost Shadow. But it wasn't dark enough, so I added Hickory Smoke in many layers and Black Soot around the edges. In the end I splattered with white paints to create a snowy background.

Before I started to build the front side. I glued a black tag to the back side where I stamped and heat embossed a bold Christmas text with silver embossing powder. For this, I used the Stampers Anonymous Bold Tidings 2 stamp set (CMS419).

I cut out the branch with a Sizzix Bigz die, Bird Branch (657833) but I cut off the bird. I painted it medium brown, with dark brown at the edges. I glued it on the tag. I also splattered the branch with white paint.

Then I cut off the excess. And attached the text to the left side. For the text I used the Stampers Anonymous, Tiny Text Christmas (CMS424). I stamped with embossing ink and heat embossed with embossing powder.

Then I added white texture paste to the top of the branches to make snowy branches.

Then I just attached the bird with double-sided foam adhesive to the tag. I tied an organza ribbon with a snowflake charm from the Idea-Ology Snowflakes set.

With my tag, I would like to join the Simon Says Stamp Monday Challenge: Use Dies and Wednesday Challenge: Use Dies.

A set of Christmas cards with a cardinal

Let me show you the three Christmas cards that I just finished. For the cards, I used the cardinal die, which I believe was created in 2020 as a collaboration between Simon Says Stamp and Tim Holtz and was a free gift with December orders. And I've never used it before. 

The birds

First I created the three birds. The back piece was coloured with brown (Ground Espresso) and black (Black Soot) inks, and the bigger red piece was coloured with Fire Brick.

The rest of the red pieces were coloured with Lumberjack Plaid, Fired Brick and Aged Mahogany.

The beak was coloured with Fossilized Amber and with Vintage Photo around the edges. Later I added Lumberjack Plaid to the brown tail.

The backgrounds

Then I cut three panels from watercolour paper and I started to colour them with Distress inks. I wanted each card to have a different background colour.

One was coloured with Weathered Wood and Speckled Egg.

The second was coloured with Speckled Egg and Salvaged Patina.

And the third was coloured with Stormy Sky.

Then I toned them down with diluted white paint. The acrylic paint is also good for protecting the inky background. When it was dry I spattered with the same white paint to create snowy background. When they were dry I glued them on red background panels.

The pine branches

I wanted to place my birds to pine branches and I found the perfect branches in the Pine Branch Sizzix die set (664228).

I cut the branches from white watercolour paper and coloured them with Rustic Wilderness ink, and I went through the middle part with Vintage Photo marker.

How I put the cards together

So, my inky background was already placed to a red panel. The next step was to adhere to a folded creamy white card. When it was done, I started adding the elements to the card.

First the branches.

Then the birds. I also wanted to add some bigger snowflakes, so I cut out a few using the Twig&Stump (666072) Thinlits die and Winter (663098) Side-Order die. I also added a little sparkle for the snowflakes. First I put Glossy Accents then Distress Glitter. You might see it here:

The texts are from the Stampers Anonymous Tiny Text Christmas stamp set (CMS424).

And you probably see that I added a little glitter and snowdrops to the branches.

With my cards, I would like to join the Simon Says Stamp Monday Challenge: Matching Set

Hero Arts Color Layering Cardinal

A colour layering stamp was missing from my life until I ordered the Hero Arts Color Layering Cardinal.

That was my first attempt to do layered stamping and it was not that easy than I expected. Very important to have 3 different shades from the same colour to layer, a stamping tool to be able to repeat the stamping and a good quality paper is essential too.

So here are my two cards with two colour variations.

For this, I used the following Ranger Archival colours:

Tree: Potting Soil, Olive

Cardinal: Rose Madder, Carnation Red, Vermillion, Jet Black

And here is the lighter version

Tree: Potting Soil, Ranger Distress Mawed Lawn

Cardinal: Pink Peony, Carnation Red, Vermillion, Jet Black

With red glitter liners I made berries to the branches so they turned into more fantasy trees than real pine trees :-)