This post was sponsored by Simon Says Stamp. Thanks, Simon!
Hi friends! I am back with another post for my Christmas In July week here on my blog! As a St. Louis native, Cardinals have always held a special place in my heart, and the symbolism of cardinals representing visitors from heaven has always given me comfort. We have lots of cardinals in our yard, and it seems like when I am having a stressful day with my kiddos, a cardinal will appear in the window, reminding me of the immense patience that my grandparents showed my sister and me. I love the winter imagery of a vivid red cardinal amongst the beautiful snowy landscape, which is what I tried to create with this crisp white card, adding pops of holiday color with cherry and cranberry red. Let’s get started with the details!
I started my project by die cutting the cardinal from the Honeybee Stamps Lovely Layers Winter Birds using three different shades of red cardstock. These Lovely Layers die sets from Honeybee Stamps are super detailed and very simple to assemble, with incredible results! I also die cut the beautiful Corner Pine Frame from some white glitter cardstock to create the snowy branches for my cardinal. I die cut a few extra sprigs of pine using some iridescent white foil cardstock and the Pine Needle Trio die set. The combination of different types of white textured cardstock creates a lush pine bough for the bright crimson cardinal!
Once I had die cut all of the different foliage elements for my project, I ran a panel of A2 sized white cardstock through my die cutting machine using the Threaded Snowflakes embossing folder. The beautifully detailed snowflakes add marvelous texture behind the delicate pine die cuts. I adhered the glittery white Corner Pine Frame to the textured snowflake background using liquid adhesive. Before arranging the rest of the die cuts, I turned my attention to the sentiment.
For the greeting, I die cut the detail layer of the Fancy Holiday Cheer die set from some deep cranberry cardstock, then layered it on the shadow layer cut from vellum cardstock. I also trimmed down a pre-printed holiday sentiment (that I think may be discontinued, but THESE are similar!). I arranged all of the different die cuts and sentiment pieces on the white-on-white textured background, adhering them with a combination of liquid and foam adhesive for lots of different levels of height and dimension. I had some leftover die cut berries from THIS card, so I nestled some berry clusters amongst the pine boughs for some extra pops of red. Finally, I added a few Clear Pawsitively Dazzling Gems for extra sparkle. The sparkly, shiny white specialty cardstocks with the pops of bright, cheery red make for such a festive color palette!
Well, that’s all for my project today! I have a few more holiday projects up my sleeve to share with you, so be sure to come back again. Thanks so much for stopping by today, and have a marvelous day!
Wow!!!! Sooooo wonderful!!!