Wednesday Sketch Challenge Card Christmas Cardinal

Here is my card for this week's Sketch Challenge over at SplitCoastStampers. I actually remembered it was Wednesday! I hate it when there's a holiday in the week, it messes things up but I'm doing pretty good remembering what day it is and the week is half over!!! But fortunately there is nothing very pressing the rest of the week so I can just plug along and get by!

My card for this weeks sketch was done using the "Christmas Cardinal" stamp. And if you notice, I did flip the sketch to fit my card. I wanted my bird to face to the left. It looked strange facing the other way. I don't know why it was so important to have it face the other way but honestly it just didn't look right!

I used the new "Deck the Halls" decorative paper. It's SO rich and pretty looking. Every sheet in this pack is beautiful!

The little holly leaves in the corner are from the backside of the decorative paper. I just cut them out and taped them to the corner.

I used the "Petals-a-Plenty" embossing folder on the Garden Green background piece (layer #1).

The layer #3 was a bit tricky for me. I wasn't sure where I was going with it. I ended up just taping the black layer to the card and adding some black satin ribbon around it and tying a knot. I didn't want to add any color there, I thought it would be distracting.

The cardinal was colored in using the Riding Hood Red marker. Yup, just colored directly from the marker. The design of the image allows you to do that and have it look shaded. Gotta LOVE that. It's difficult to ruin this image when coloring it in. Ok, you can ruin it if you keep coloring over the same area.

If you have time play with this sketch. There's a LOT of sets in the Stampin' Up! catalog that will fit in the #4 space. It's another fun sketch and I can see myself using it again on other cards. Perhaps the masculine birthday I need to make sometime this month!

I have a weekend project for you! A fun, quick and simple Halloween one so stay tuned!

Thank you SO much for visiting today,

Wanda