Happy Saturday!  I love the weekends when I can take my time doing a project in the morning as I drink my pot of coffee.  No rushing off to work today.

I’ve had some requests to do some winter type scenes so I got out this great set of stamps by Fire Cracker Designs by Pamela.  Here is a link if you want to check out their great online store:  http://www.safesecurestore.com/stores/merchant.mvc?Screen=SFNT&Store_Code=firecrackerdesignsbypamela

For those people already making their Christmas cards, MORE POWER TO YOU!  I won’t be starting mine until November at the earliest, lol.

The frame I used in this project is one I picked up at a garage sale for 75 cents.  It had a horrible picture in it, but that’s all the better.  I didn’t feel bad throwing the picture in the trash.  I get frames and then make stamped pieces to go inside.  It’s easier to know what frame you are going to use and then cut your cardstock to fit it, instead of making the piece a certain size and trying to find a frame to fit the piece.  Clear as mud?  🙂

I’m giving this framed piece away as blog candy.  I will use a random number generator next Saturday, October 4th to select the winner.  To enter all you need to do is leave a comment on this post telling me an item you like to re-purpose.  It could be anything.  If you are getting this post update by e-mail, you will need to click this link and then leave a comment on the post:  http://zindorf.blogs.splitcoaststampers.com/2008/09/27/winter-cardinal-tutorial-124-and-blog-candy/

Good Luck!

Let’s get started on today’s tutorial.  🙂

Supplies:

Stamped tree by first loading stamp with Versamark and then loading it with Black ink before stamping it on a piece of 4″ square Whisper White card stock.

Heat embossed tree using fine detail clear embossing powder and a heat gun.

Stamped Cardinal by first loading the stamp with Versamark and then loading it with Black ink before stamping it.

Heat embossed the cardinal using fine detail clear embossing powder and a heat gun.

Stamped the house in the distance by first loading the stamp with Versamark and then loading it with black ink before stamping it.

Heat embossed the house using fine detail clear embossing powder and a heat gun.

Colored the Left half of the tree with a Prismacolor 10% Cool Grey marker.

Colored Left side of the tree using a Prismacolor 30% Cool Grey marker, but did not cover the 10% Cool Grey entirely.

Colored the top part of the cardinal using a Prismacolor Scarlet Lake marker.

Colored the cardinal’s underside and tail using a Prismacolor Crimson Red marker.

Colored the Cardinal’s beak using a Prismacolor Burnt Ochre marker.

Colored the very left side of the tree using a Prismacolor 50% Cool Grey marker, not covering the 30% Cool Grey entirely.

Colored over all the images with a Versmark marker, making sure not to go outside the lines.   🙂

Heat embossed all the images using fine detail clear embossing powder and a heat gun.

Covered the bottom of the card stock with a post it note to mask it.

Brayered on Baja Breeze ink at the top of the card stock.  The embossed images will resist the brayered ink “emboss resist”.

Brayered on Not Quite Navy at the top of the card stock, not covering the Baja Breeze ink entirely.

Sponged on some mountain shapes using Not Quite Navy ink.

Note:  If putting in two mountains make one mountain much smaller than the other one so it doesn’t look like your mountains need a bra, lol. 

Sponged on some Night of Navy ink at the top of the card stock and at the mountain bases.

Remove the post it note and throw it away.  Using a new post it note, rip through the sticky part of the post it note to create a hill shape.  Put in on the card stock to mask the bottom of the card stock.

Sponged lightly Baja Breeze ink at the post it notes torn edge.

Remove post it note.

Sponge Baja Breeze ink under the tree  and the cardinal to create a shadow for them.

Add a few specks of black marker around the bird.  Gotta feed the bird!

Held a Sharpie Gold Paint marker tip, half on the card stock and half on my scrap paper and ran down each edge of the main image panel.  

Note:  Try this out before doing it on your finished panel.  🙂

Panels are as follows from top to bottom:  Main image panel, Baja Breeze Panel, Basic Black panel, Not Quite Navy Panel.

One more thing before you run to craft room to start making your Christmas cards, lol, yeah right, I want to give you a great link to a Creativity Survey.  Fill the survey out and you get $10 off of your Craft DVD order and it also enters you to win $300 Full Library of PageSage Craft DVDs produced by Page Sage for Artists like Tim Holtz (my hero) and Carol Duvall.   Check it out:   http://pagesage.com/

Well it’s time to go do some Autumn clean up in my garden, I’ve played long enough this morning.

May your Saturday be filled with really good times to remember.

Until my next post. . . . . . .. . . . . . .

Hugs,

Michelle

Links to all my tutorials can be found here:  http://zindorf.blogs.splitcoaststampers.com/tutorials-ive-written/

Here is a link to my workshop calendar if you want to get info on beginner and advanced Brayer workshops:  http://zindorf.blogs.splitcoaststampers.com/workshop-calendar