The second project in my blendabilities series showcases one of the new stamp sets from the upcoming 2014 Stampin’ Up! Holiday Catalog. The set is called Beauty of the Season and it is the only set available to us now as the new catalog doesn’t go live until August 28th. The set contains this gorgeous cardinal image and a variety of beautiful sentiments. And it’s the perfect type of image for shading and blending with the new blendabilities markers.
For this project, start with a piece of soft suede cardstock for the base of your card. Cut a 5 1/4 x 4 inch piece of cherry cobbler cardstock and emboss it with the new Zig Zag embossing folder. Stamp the cardinal image, using the memento ink pad, onto a piece of whisper white cardstock. Cut out the image using one of the labels framelits. Cut out another labels framelits, from soft suede cardstock, a size larger than the one you did your stamping on…you will use this as a “matte” behind your image (see pic above). I did a bit of paper piercing around the soft suede matte using one of the festive paper piercing templates.
Once you have the cardinal stamped and cut out with the framelits, you are ready to begin shading and blending. Using the cherry cobbler blendabilities pack, start by adding the darkest red color. I added a bit of the dark cherry cobbler to the belly, tail and face of the cardinal. Next, grab the medium and light cherry cobbler colors and start the blending process. Remember to blend from dark to light. I tend to use the ball point tip of the marker for blending…you can press down firmer to blend out the lines where the lighter color meets the darker color. Continue to shade and blend until you achieve the desired look. For the branches and the beak of the bird, I used a few of the skin tone blendabilities markers. And for the finishing touches, I added a little pearl for the eye of the bird and a Christmas sentiment from the Teeny Tiny wishes stamp set (using the word window and modern label punches). This is one of my favorite projects from class…I plan on making a few of these for Christmas this year. 🙂