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Sixth Street Sundries

Emily Midgett

Papertrey Ink

Holiday Card Hustle, Day 5!

Good morning! Happy Wednesday! I feel like this week has taken so long…. maybe that’s because my to-do list is about a mile long haha! Today is Day 5 of my Holiday Card Hustle series. I used a photo from last year’s photo shoot, because my kids were so darn adorable in this picture that I couldn’t help it haha! The colors of our photo shoot from last year worked just perfectly with the Wonderland Make It Market kit from Papertrey Ink.

Those Make It Market kits are my kryptonite. Such perfect design and so many perfect little details. This year’s kit had flowers. You know me and flowers. I was helpless to resist. For this photo card, I started with an A7 sized panel of card stock. I then trimmed the photo of my kiddos down. I added a strip of the floral patterned paper that came with the kit on the other side so that the edges of the photo and patterned paper were equidistant from the edge of the gray panel.

There are a lot of patterns going on in this project. I wanted to put a somewhat “neutral” barrier over the line where the two pieces met on the card base. When mixing patterned papers, it’s good to neutralize your busier patterns by placing a looser, simpler pattern between, one that contrasts with the busy patterns. I have the rose patterned paper and the photo of my kids with lots going on visually, and so the strip of birch patterned paper acts as a kind of visual neutralizer over the line where the patterns join together. I adhered the strip of birch paper, then die cut some of the pre-printed pieces from the kit. For the greeting, the “wishing you a wonder-filled holiday” seemed almost made for this photo of my kiddos whispering secrets to each other. I die cut one of the scalloped ovals from the kit from some linen card stock, then added the greeting towards the bottom half of the die cut and added the little bouquet of flowers on top. Sort of looks like a basket of holiday flowers that you’d send to a loved one!!

Once I finally finished pushing all of the pieces around and deciding on a layout for this card, this one would be super simple to mass produce, especially if you used the pre-printed die cuts from the kit’s paper pad.

Well, that’s all for me today. I will be back tomorrow with Day 6 of the Holiday Card Hustle! I really need to kick in gear now… I’m somewhat in denial that Christmas is only 3 weeks away!!! Hope your holiday cardmaking is going well, friends! Have a marvelous day. 🙂

 

Holiday Card Hustle, day 2.

Good morning! I’m back again for Day 2 of my Holiday Card Hustle series. Over the next several days, I’m going to show you how to incorporate your beautiful family photos into your holiday cards using your holiday stamping supplies. It’s like a handmade photo card hybrid. I feel like I have so many Christmas card supplies that it makes me feel almost guilty if I don’t put them to use for our family Christmas cards. The card I’m sharing today is one of the simpler cards of the series, really a great one for mass production, and this basic design will probably make up the bulk of the holiday cards that I send out this year.

Like my card yesterday, this card today is a 5×7 instead of a traditional A2 card. I chose to work with this larger canvas because it mats perfectly with a 4×6 photo, as well as giving me some extra space to add embellishment. You want the photo to be the focal point of your holiday card, naturally, so I wanted to make sure that my embellishment didn’t cover up or detract in any way from my kiddos’ cheesy, precious little smiles. 😉

I started by trimming a 5″x7″ panel of Fresh Snow linen card stock from Papertrey Ink. Most people just send out flat photo cards anymore, but this could easily be modified to create a more typical folded card by cutting a 10″x7″ and scoring at the 5″ mark. I trimmed 1/4″ from the edge of my photo so that I could mat it with a 4″x6″ panel of Scarlet Jewel card stock. I wanted to bring out some of the colors in the photo, and I’m glad that I fussed over our outfits so much, because the pretty navy and wine combination looks so nice on a Christmas card!!!

After I had mounted my matted photo to the A7 panel, I added some embellishment. I used the Simple Gift Bow dies with some dark blue shimmer card stock to add a holiday “bow” to the corners, then added a gold glitter die cut Merry Christmas at the bottom of the photo. The gold stands out nicely from, but still coordinates with, the shades of gold in the photo. (You could also use black and white or sepia photos if you wanted to use your own unique color scheme for your holiday cards!)

And that’s all! Because this one involves trimming and die cutting, it’d be a super quick one to mass produce. Just cut and glue together et voila!

I hope you’re enjoying this series. I’ve so enjoyed stretching my creativity to find ways to keep the photos as a focal point and still have an element of being “handmade” in my holiday cards. I hope you’ll come back tomorrow for Day 3 of The Holiday Card Hustle! Have a marvelous Saturday, friends!

Holiday Card Hustle!!

Good morning! Today marks the start of something new that I’m trying this year. I’m going to call it the Holiday Card Hustle. Every year since my husband and I were married 8.5 years ago, I have made our Christmas cards, and since our kiddos were born, we have taken beautiful family photos each fall in anticipation of using them as our Christmas card… but I can’t ever seem to let go of the idea that I should be making our Christmas cards. I have all of these supplies, so I feel almost guilty if I don’t use them to make our Christmas cards. The last couple of years have seen a Christmas card with one of our family photos tucked inside, but this year, I decided to switch it up a little and incorporate our family photo into the handmade holiday cards! Over the next several days, I will be posting inspiration melding the two concepts. I hope you’ll enjoy it and be inspired to create your own hybrid handmade photo cards!

For today’s card, I’m using one of our photos from our photo shoot last year (our kiddos were so tiny and young!! waaahhhh!) I wanted to use several different layouts and poses in this series to show you have easy this can be. My first tip is to create 5×7 cards. Photos come standard in 4×6 size, but I found that if you’re trying to fit that 4×6 photo onto an A2 card, you a) have to cut some of your lovely photo off and b) have very little room to add your handmade embellishments. The postage cost for A2 and A7 envelopes is the same, so it doesn’t cost any extra to upgrade your card size!! As long as you are less than 1/4″ thick, your card should mail nicely without any extra postage. Here is a handy reference guide from the US Postal Service.

To start, I die cut a frame from Papertrey Ink’s Mix and Mat Berry Boughs die from some Kraft card stock. I also die cut a solid version of the frame using my photo, then adhered the frame to the photo. I like to keep my color scheme coordinated with my photo, so I chose to focus on the neutrals and greens found in the picture. (It helps when your photo outfits are carefully… perhaps obsessively…. coordinated haha!)

After I had framed my photo, I cut a 5×7 panel of Hero Arts’s Woodgrain card stock (HA|EH). The texture of this card stock is just lovely… I want to buy a ream of it haha! You could also use woodgrain patterned paper for a similar, more cost-effective look. I wanted a subtle, somewhat textured background that would coordinate nicely with the woodland scene in the photograph.

Next, I decided to add some more foliage by adding sprigs of Papertrey Ink’s Beautiful Berries Winter stamp set. In keeping with the neutrals and green theme, I stamped the foliage in Willow and Green Apple inks from Simon Says Stamp, and just the second step of the berries using Fog ink. Using just the second step of the two-step berry stamp creates white berries!

I had a custom stamp created for my holiday cards this year from Bossy Joscie, which I stamped on the back of this flat postcard, so I wanted to keep the greeting on the front simple. I decided to use a simple die cut “joy” from My Favorite Things (EH|SSS) cut from some champagne shimmer card stock and mounted in the corner of my kraft frame. The final touch was a twine bow amongst the berries and branches!

I hope you enjoyed this first photo holiday card hybrid! I have lots more ideas to share with you, and I hope my excitement is contagious! Have a great day, and I’ll see you back here tomorrow with some more inspiration!

PTI blog hop for Dawn McVey

Good morning! So, I’ve had a very long obsession with Papertrey Ink stamps. It honestly was the second company from which I purchased any stamps, and after I received my first order, I was absolutely hooked. The super high quality stamps, the coordinating ink and card stock…. I was smitten. Though I don’t have as much time to play with my PTI products as I used to (hasn’t stopped me from purchasing, ahem), I still follow along with each release and glean SO much inspiration from their crazy talented designers. One of those designers, Dawn McVey, has been having a series of very serious health troubles for the last few years, and finally was able to receive a small intestine transplant that will hopefully give her some relief, at long last! (To read all of her story and/or to donate money to her recovery, click here.) To celebrate this auspicious occasion, the cardmakers who adore Dawn’s style and trendy products from Papertrey Ink are taking part in a blog hop using Dawn’s products!

Dawn is known for her florals and use of color, as well as the vintage flair that she adds to all of her projects and products. I personally love her holiday sets; she has so many, and they are all so unique and so lovely. For my project for today’s blog hop, I chose to work with Deck the Halls. I die cut and stamped the wreath and bow from PTI’s white card stock (the only white card stock I use. So sturdy and economical!), then stamped it with Tropical Teal and Pure Poppy inks.

I have had this card in my head for awhile, since the Garden Gate Make It Market kit came out. I die cut the gate from plain white card stock and added the sentiment from Deck the Halls in black ink down in the corner. For the background, I blended some Spring Rain ink at the top of the card base, gradually tapering it off down towards the bottom of the card. I used a snowfall stencil to add some snowflakes with pearlescent embossing paste. I adhered the gate with the wreath to the card front using dimensional adhesive.

Well, that’s all for me today! I am so happy for Dawn, even though she has a long road to recovery…. hopefully this transplant will be the answer for which she’s been searching for so long! Sending big hugs and lots of healing thoughts to you!

Tag, You’re It Guest Designer!

Good morning! Today I have the pleasure of being a Guest Designer for the fabulous Tag, You’re It Challenge Blog! I will freely admit that tags are something with which I struggle a bit… I think it’s the smaller canvas. It just throws me a little haha! After pushing lots of paper around on my desk, I managed to come up with this bright little tag:

Cute, right? I used all Papertrey Ink products for this one. The tag itself is from the Tag Sale Quilted die collection, which I cut from white card stock. The stamps and dies are all from the Holiday Folk Make It Market Mini kit. I used Tropical Teal and gold sparkle embossing powder to stamp all of the die cuts.

I popped everything up with dimensional foam tape, then added the tie to the top using white velvet ribbon and some twine.

I can’t wait to see what you come up with! Use my tag as a starting point for your own project, and be sure to link your finished project up to the Tag You’re It blog!