Trees and Cardinals at Christmas with Karenliz

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Merry Christmas!
Happy Holidays!
Happy Everything!

When I was little Christmas Eve was the time we decorated our tree. We always went to midnight mass at church so it was a way to keep us up and not fall asleep. You don’t want your kids up all night on Christmas Eve. One of the decorations on our tree were these cardinals with clips on their feet that would attach to the tree branches. Now all grown up, cardinals on a snowy white tree would be beautiful. That’s the inspiration for this piece.

I took a 8×8 stretched canvas and centered the 6×6 Aspen Trees stencil (TCW252s) with painters tape. Once secure to the canvas I used black acrylic paint through the stencil. When the paint was dry I took an X-acto knife and started to cut out the negative space of the stencil design.

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I continued cutting until it was finished. I did only choose to cut out the thicker branches and not those thin ones. Yes, I did try it but it wasn’t pretty.

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Once I was finished, I painted the whole canvas (front and back) with white paint.
Then went back and painted the black on the trees.

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The blue background is a piece of frosted plastic.
I used a brayer with DecoArt Media Fluid Acrylics to create the blue background.

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Although it’s hard to see I wanted to add some snow to the background. I used the Mini Circle Explosion stencil (TCW278s) and DecoArt Media Shimmer Mister to create my snow.

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While it was still wet I added some glitter.

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To complete the canvas I added cardinals and additional snowflakes.

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I hope you like my canvas.
Try cutting out a stencil design on a canvas for yourself.
It was lots of fun.

I hope everyone has a wonderful holiday!

Karenliz Henderson
The Crafter’s Workshop Design Team
My Blog: My Creative Endeavors

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