Christmas Cardinal 8x8Completed by Pamela Horton The whispering Platypus

The red and deep sea green and gold shades in this beautiful Christmas Cardinal topper, and the beautiful design on this sheet provided is a quick and very easy card to make and to add to my Christmas posting collection.

I have made the main card by printing onto both sides of an A4 white light card, a design by Clare Walker, cup814313_79993, Christmas Lace Effect which I have adjusted the colour saturation to be deep sea green.

This design by Clare I have used many times when making cards. I then cut the folded and scored card front to measure 14.25cm x 15cm. I have used 3copies of the sheet provided today to make the card, shown in the photograph, using a decoupage effect finish.

I have used 2 backing sheets, the first backing sheet is deep sea green with white spots cut at 14cm square and is attached to the card front using D.S. tape.

I used a red decorative red peel off strip to attach to the 4 edges of the backing sheet.

The second backing sheet is white card cut at 12.5cm square, which I have attached using D.S. tape to the back of one copy of the main Christmas Cardinal full image and then used my red permanent pen and ruler to define all 4 edges.

Before I completed the cutting and attaching of the smaller elements from the other 2 copies of the sheet provided I have cut 3x19cm lengths of narrow red satin ribbon and attached one of these across the front of this topper, 4cm down, from the top edge of the white backing sheet and secured the tails at the back of the main image.

I used the second copy of the main image to remove and keep the ornate frame complete with the baubles ribbons and red cardinal.

I attached this to the topper using padded D.S. tape and tiny squares and spots as needed.

I then used the second ribbon to attach across the topper 1cm below the first ribbon. Before the next step of the decoupage, I have attached this topper with the ribbons secured onto the card front using D.S. tape.

I used the 3rd length of ribbon to tie a tiny bow in the centre of the ribbon and slide the tails under either side of the 2 horizontal ribbons, securing the tails with a glue tape roller.

I used the last copy of the sheet provided to remove and use the ribbon bow, baubles and the cardinal.

I used small padded D.S. squares to attach these small elements to the card front.

I made the gold and red backing sheets for the sentiment and attached this sentiment slightly under the edge of top right hand paper ribbons.

I have then used my Gold dust glitter glue and a fine brush to sparingly brush onto the main elements and added some tiny gold stars as extra embellishments.

To complete the insert, I have a used a verse from the free verse section to attach to the right hand side and one of the small main images and a sentiment onto some white card for the space for my special greeting.

I have used the extra small main images and the extra sentiments to make gift tags. I use these gift tags to make bundles of 5 different designs to give away as small thank you gifts and lucky door prizes at my charity craft day.

Thank you, Anne, for offering this beautiful design for us to purchase. Pamela Horton. The Whispering Platypus.