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Sixth Street Sundries

Emily Midgett

Video: Watercoloring with Colorado Craft Company and a Sale!

Hi there! I have a colorful watercolor project to share with you today using only three shades of watercolor, which I mix and match to create this vibrant watercolored image using the new Floral Corners stamp from Colorado Craft Company! I also have information about a great sale happening this weekend at Colorado Craft Company, so keep reading for all of the details on that!

Here’s the video on how I created today’s card:

You can watch the video above or HERE in HD on YouTube.

For today’s card, I began by heat embossing the beautiful image from Floral Corners onto some Fabriano Artistico watercolor paper using Brass embossing powder, then saturated the entire watercolor panel with clean water and dropped some diluted magenta, blue, and jungle green watercolors from Sennelier. The wet watercolor paper combined with the wet diluted watercolor allows the watercolor to bloom and meld into each other, creating a lovely base layer upon which to layer the more detailed painting. To speed up the drying process, I zapped the very wet panel with my heat gun. I then added details to the images using the same three watercolor shades that I’d used for the base layer, mixing and matching to create different shades and adding depth and shadow to the images.

For the greeting, I marked another sheet of Fabriano Artistico watercolor paper approximately where the large “hi” die from the Concord and 9th Everyday Sayings die set, then used those same three shades of Sennelier watercolors to create an ombre panel. Once it had dried, I die cut the sentiment from both the watercolored panel and piece of iridescent purple foil to create a shadow layer. I adhered these two pieces together, slightly offsetting them, which allows them to pop even more from the colorful background.

I created a card base by die cutting a panel of coordinating blue cardstock using the Pinkfresh Studio Stitched Diamonds cover plate die, then trimmed it and mounted it on a panel of coordinating A2 magenta cardstock. I adhered a gold glitter arch frame (created using the Nesting Domed Arches dies from Simon Says Stamp) using some more foam tape, then added the floral die cut and the sentiment die cuts. The final touch was to add some iridescent gems to add some more sparkle.

Now, for some retail therapy!

Colorado Craft Company is having a huge sale this weekend: Buy 2, Get 1 Free! Simply fill your cart, then use promo code B2G1FREE to get every third item in your cart for *free.* That is one heck of a sale!

Thanks so much for reading today, and have a marvelous day!

Pinkfresh Studio May 2022 Stamp and Die Release Hop + Giveaway!

Good morning! Today is the Pinkfresh Studio May 2022 Stamp and Die release, and we have a fabulous blog hop to inspire you with all of these amazing new goodies! You can see the full link list down at the bottom of this post in case you get lost. This release is full of all of the beautiful, innovative products that you’ve come to associate with Pinkfresh Studio, and I have two projects to share with you today, so let’s get started with the details!

I seem to always gravitate towards pink, coral, or plum these days, so I thought it would be fun to really switch it up and do some gorgeous cool tones with periwinkle blue, lilac, and a few pops of pink. Both of my cards feature the stunning new Stained Glass cover plate die, which is a perfect background for the gorgeous new floral sets: Painted Daisies and Grant Yourself Grace!

For the Painted Daisies project, I began by stamping the main image onto some watercolor paper using no-line coloring ink. I then used my Sennelier watercolors to add lots of cool lilac, periwinkle, and jade, with a few pops of bright fuchsia to add extra interest. Once I’d finished watercoloring, I die cut the image using the coordinating die.

I trimmed down a periwinkle blue A2 card base, then die cut the stunning new Stained Glass cover plate die from some holographic blue cardstock. The gorgeous holographic cardstock picks up the beautiful variety of colors in the painting, but also is tone-on-tone enough to create subtle texture for the background, allowing the flowers to be the star of the show.

I arranged the flower bouquet in the corner of the card, trimming off the excess and arranging the leftovers to create a cascade down the card front. I popped all of the pieces up using foam adhesive, then added a greeting from Modern Sentiments, heat embossed in white on some more periwinkle cardstock and die cut with the coordinating (one piece!) die. The final touch was to add a few Sapphire jewels!

My second project features the same color palette, this time focusing on the gorgeous individual flowers from the Grant Yourself Grace product suite. I stamped the outline stamps for Grant Yourself Grace on some white cardstock using Stargazer ink, a bit more subtle than typical black ink, then used the Grant Yourself Grace Stencils with Sapphire, Blue Jay, and Slumber inks for the roses, Candy Violet and Lavender for the pops of lilac, and Meadow and Emerald City for the greenery. I die cut all of the finished stenciled images with the coordinating one-piece die (love how convenient that is! So clever!) and turned to my card base.

For the card base, I again die cut the fantastic Stained Glass cover plate die from some periwinkle cardstock and layered it over a full size A2 periwinkle card base. This tone-on-tone texture is absolutely marvelous! I had reserved the negative die cuts from my holographic blue Stained Glass die cut from the previous card, so I adhered those in some of the spaces to help add even more subtle, but gorgeous, interest to the background.

Once I’d finished creating the different components to the card front, I began to assemble the card. I die cut a circle from some more periwinkle cardstock, then began to arrange the roses around it as a ground for my flowers. I adhered the circle and flowers using foam adhesive, then added a greeting (leftover from the previous card) from Modern Sentiments with another layer of foam adhesive, giving it a double layer of foam adhesive in total to help it really stand out. Some more Sapphire gems help bring out those iridescent blue foil accents on the die cut background!

Well, that’s all for my projects today. Pinkfresh is hosting a giveaway to celebrate their new release! They will be giving away the full release on the Pinkfresh blog & YouTube channel. They also will be giving away a total of TEN $25  gift cards along the hop. The winners will be selected from the comments. The more comments you leave along the hop, the more chances you have to win! Winners will be announced on June 3, 2022 on our GIVEAWAY PAGE. Winners must check that page & claim your prize within 2 weeks.

The full hop list is included below, and you can check out the full May 2022 Release HERE. Thanks so much for reading, and happy hopping!

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

Altenew Paint-A-Flower: Magnolia Rustica Outline Stamp Set Release Blog Hop + Giveaway ($200 in Total Prizes)

Hi there! Today, Altenew is celebrating their new Paint-A-Flower: Magnolia Rustica release with a blog hop! You should have arrived here from the Altenew Card Blog, and your next stop is Ann Taylor. In my book, the bigger the bloom, the better for coloring, and these beautiful blooms from the Paint-A-Flower: Magnolia Rustica are gigantic and so fun to paint! Let’s get started with the details on my project.

I began by heat embossing the gorgeous Paint-A-Flower: Magnolia Rustica in the center of an A2 panel of watercolor paper using gold embossing powder. I knew that I wanted to paint a dark, vibrant, intense background for some light pink magnolias, so I taped my panel down to my watercolor board using some painter’s tape, then mixed some vivid maroon-y fuchsia using the Artist’s 24 Pan Watercolor. The colors included in the Artist’s 24 Pan Watercolor set are gorgeous in and of themselves, but I have found myself wanting to stretch my color palette even further lately by mixing and matching various shades to create completely unique custom colors. I created this intense deep pink by mixing Cherry Blossom (bright pink), Shades of Purple (amethyst purple), and a touch of Rock Collection (black). I encourage you to try mixing different shades on your own watercolor palette. It opens up a world of possibilities!

After I had created the deep pink halo around my floral image in the center of the watercolor panel, I worked on the Magnolia image itself. I painted the area around it first because I wanted to do some reverse artistic psychology on my eyes and make stark the contrast between the intense halo surrounding the flower and the flower itself. I diluted the same shade of deep pink used on the halo down a bit using clean water, then painted the flowers, keeping the color concentrated in the center of the blooms and using lots of water to pull that small amount of color out in a smooth fade to white. The contrast between the background and the flowers helps to keep me from adding too much color to the flowers and keeps them to light.

While my painting was drying (still taped to my board to keep it from warping) I die cut the detailed Handwritten Hello die twice from some scrap white cardstock and once from some matte gold foil cardstock. I layered all of the pieces together using liquid adhesive to create a dimensional die cut greeting. I also gold embossed a greeting from Sentiment Strips 3 onto a thin strip of maroon cardstock, adhering it to the card front using some foam tape.

Well that’s all for my project today! Now for some fun giveaway information:

$200 in total prizes! To celebrate this release, Altenew is giving away a $50 gift certificate to 2 lucky winners and a $20 gift certificate to 5 winners! Please leave a comment on the Altenew Card Blog and/or each designer’s blog post on the blog hop list below by 05/28/2022 for a chance to win. Altenew will draw 7 random winners from the comments left on each stop of this blog hop and announce the winners on the Altenew Winners Page on 05/30/2022.

Your next stop is Ann Taylor. Thanks so much for stopping by today, and happy hopping!

Hero Arts 2022 Mixed Media Release+Blog Hop!

Hi there! Today, Hero Arts is celebrating the release of their new Mixed Media Catalog with a blog hop, and we are hoping to inspire you to step outside of your comfort zone. You should have arrived here from Debi Adams, and your next stop is Ilina Crouse. I will admit, my initial thought was that Mixed Media was a bit too far of a departure from my normal style, but guess what I learned? For a project to be considered “mixed media,” it only needs to mix more than one medium-embossing, painting, stamping, ink blending, pastes, pearls… something that we do frequently as cardmakers!! I combined some of the new products from the Mixed Media Catalog with some older products and art supplies to create this card/tag combo, so let’s get started with the details!

Both of my projects feature the Floral Silhouettes stamps as the base of the projects. I love using colored pencils on vibrant colored cardstock, and thought it would be great fun to combine the Hero Arts Liquid Watercolors with white gouache to do some painting on Nautical cardstock. I stamped the images from Floral Silhouettes onto Nautical cardstock using Unicorn White pigment ink, then created a lovely pastel palette by mixing gouache with Strawberry, Mulled Wine, and Jungle Mist liquid watercolors. The opacity of the gouache makes it stand out perfectly on the dark navy blue cardstock.

Painting with gouache is a bit different than my normal painting technique. I painted the images flat, then added highlights to create definition on the individual areas, which is a bit of a departure from my usual technique of adding shadows to my images. The Floral Silhouettes stamps are solid silhouettes, so they leave some room for imagination when it comes to adding details. I fussy cut the finished images using my sharp scissors.

For my card base, I used White Satin Pearl embossing powder to emboss the new Calligraphy Bold Prints on a full size A2 panel of Nautical cardstock. I trimmed down a thick strip of more Nautical cardstock, adding a thinner strip of silver glitter cardstock on either side, then adhering it to the embossed card base. I added the greeting on a strip of cardstock using some foam adhesive, then arranged my flowers above the sentiment strip like they were exploding from the top of the sentiment strip. I love how the colorful gouache painting pops so beautifully from the dark blue cardstock. This is an experiment that I definitely will try again!

My tag features some of the leftover gouache flowers and another embossed background from the Calligraphy stamp, this time backing a Looking Glass Fine Art Frame, die cut from more navy blue cardstock. I arranged the flowers and foliage, as well as a sentiment, then punched a hole in the top and threaded a ribbon through to create a tag. Simple, and would look so lovely adorning a plain gift bag!

Well, that’s all for my projects today. I so enjoyed stepping out of my comfort zone creating these projects-I can’t wait to try more gouache/liquid watercolor experiments! Solid silhouette stamps are just the foundation for some really fun techniques!

To celebrate this new catalog release, Hero Arts is giving away a super fun prize pack. You can check out the Hero Arts Blog for all of the details on the items included in the prize pack from the new release. Simply leave comments along the hop to be entered to win. The more comments you leave, the more chances you have to win!

Your next stop is Ilina Crouse. Thanks so much for stopping by today, and happy hopping!

New Video: Adding “Iridescent” Details to your No-Line Watercoloring!

Hi there! I am up on the Pinkfresh Studio YouTube channel today with this video featuring my new Magnolia stamps and some “iridescent” watercoloring. Take a peek at the video here on my blog or watch HERE on YouTube to see how I created this iridescent look!

If you can’t watch the video, I’ll give a quick rundown of how I created this pretty card!

When I’ve got all of the stuff out for hot foiling, I will hot foil a bunch of different pieces to use at a later date for projects. I hot foiled the super versatile new Nested Hexagons hot foil frames using Aura foil, which is an absolutely stunning iridescent gold foil from Spellbinders, and I thought that the new Magnolia stamps would be perfect to do a video with some more no-line watercolor tricks, as well as showing how I create an “iridescent” look to my watercolored images!

I began by stamping the Magnolia images onto some Fabriano Artistico watercolor paper using Contour Ink from Hero Arts. I used my Karin Brushmarker watercolor markers to add some light pink color to the images, keeping the pinks and lavender shadows concentrated towards the center of the flower, making sure to keep the edges nice and crisp by keeping the wet sections separate, as well as using plenty of water to allow the pink to smoothly fade into white around the edges of the petals.

After I’d added the main color to the pink flowers, I added some very diluted washes of coral, lime green, and aqua blue Karin markers to the edges of the petals, mirroring the iridescent shine on the Nested Hexagon foiled frame. I was able to make the colors super pale and translucent by scribbling them onto my ceramic palette and adding lots of clean water to create the subtle wash. I die cut the finished watercolored images using the coordinating Magnolia Dies.

To create the background for my watercolored images, I die cut a Nested Hexagon die the same size as my foiled frame from the center of a Floral Tiles cover plate die, cut from some white cardstock. I nested the foiled frame inside of the die cut opening, then added both pieces to a solid white card base using foam adhesive. I arranged the watercolored magnolia flowers to the front of the card in a bouquet, then adhered them with more foam adhesive, creating a double layer of foam adhesive. For the greeting, I added a sentiment from Brushed Sentiments, which I heat embossed in white on some heavyweight vellum and die cut using the coordinating dies. The final touch was to add a few iridescent white gems for some sparkle!

Well, that’s all for this project! It was so fun picking up the rainbow colors in the iridescent foil in my watercoloring. It’s subtle, but I think it adds so much interest to the finished painting. Thanks so much for stopping by, and have a marvelous day!