Cardinal

 Howdy MichelleO here today and here in Texas we are so blessed with beautiful Cardinal Birds - They are all over the farm here, I love watching them. Today for High Hopes Stamps I colored up the beautiful "Cardinal" bird - it was fun to color with all the shades of red. 

While coloring my image I went through some old pattern papers and found one with similar flowers from Graphic 45 Dogs and Cats collection. Love how bold it is with the image. I finished coloring with my Copics (colors below) and even did a little shading with pencils. 

A satin ribbon around the paper, then sewed the image down with a zig zag stitch. I told myself I wasn't going to sew on this one.... do something different. I just couldn't stand it, it needed it. LOL I added a bow once the image was down. Then I added the High Hopes sentiment "Sending Smiles" Its just a perfect sentiment for so many cards. I colored the sentiment with copics to shade it more like my image. It was too white before. Then I saw the backside of my pattern paper laying on my desk. It is a newspaper print, I adore newspaper pattern paper and I don't want to waste it - so - I punch out a ticket shape with an EK Success punch for a mat around my sentiment. Simple things make me happy - 

Copic colors used - 

For so many more beautiful images to color and make you happy - make sure to pop over to the High Hopes Stamps web site HERE and fall in love with LOTS!