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Sixth Street Sundries

Emily Midgett

simon says stamp

Introducing …. The 12 Cards of Christmas!

Good morning! I have a fun new series starting today… I know lots of crafters feel that holiday crunch when it gets to be the beginning of December, and so I thought I would make a concerted effort to try to get a bit of a head start this year by dedicating one day a month on my blog to a holiday card! For this month, I used one of my most favorite new stamp sets from this past holiday season: Ornamental from Concord and 9th.

I always strive to make my holiday cards as flat (aka-easily mailed) as possible. When trying to make a flat card, masking is my best friend. I can get fabulous dimension with approximately zero layers and bulk. I started by die cutting the large ornament from Concord and 9th’s Ornamental die set from some masking paper and adhered it to the center of an A2 card base. You know the glow from those pretty, ethereal Christmas lights on your tree? When you turn all of the lights off and just sit by the light of your Christmas tree? That’s what I was going for with this card. I lightly blended Hot Mama and Sea Glass inks around the edge of the masking paper. There is just enough blue in both shades of ink to allow them to blend nicely with each other.

After I had blended around the edge of the masking paper, I removed the mask and added the floral stamp from Ornamental to the lid of my MISTI. I wanted the floral details to be multi colored, as though they were reflecting the Christmas lights in my blending, so I added Sea Glass ink in a few spots on the stamp, then pressed the lid of my MISTI down, then added some Hot Mama ink in the spots that were left, but was sure to dab away some of the ink with a microfiber cloth to make a smoother transition between the two colors. I repeated this process until I was satisfied with the coverage. For the greeting, I used the lovely, scripty sentiment included in Ornamental that fits just perfectly amongst the floral detailed stamp. I stamped it using a trick my friend Lisa taught me: Distress Oxide inks are great for heat embossing!! I stamped it with Peacock Feathers Oxide ink, then embossed it with some sparkly turquoise embossing powder.

To turn it into an “ornament,” I die cut the ornament topper from some sparkly silver glitter card stock and adhered it with liquid adhesive. Nice and flat and lots of sparkle…. perfect for Christmas! I love using non-traditional colors for holiday cards, and I think this series is going to allow me to explore lots of unique Christmas color combinations.

I hope you’ve enjoyed the first installment of The Twelve Cards of Christmas!! Have a marvelous day!


Holiday Card Hustle, Day 6!

Hi there! Welcome back for Day 6 of The Holiday Card Hustle. My best tip for mass producing holiday cards is to use lots of die cuts and small amounts of stamping. If you can use die cuts that are standalone pieces, instead of die cuts that require stamping on them, your work will go that much more quickly! Today’s photo card project has lots of die cutting and only a wee bit of stamping on it.

I started by trimming down my 4×6 horizontal photograph to 3.25″x4.75″ and matted it on a piece of 4×6 grayish-brown glitter card stock. I mounted it on an A7 white card stock panel. I wanted to create a visual cascade down the front of my card, with my family being the center of the cascade. I used some solid standalone dies to create a festive Christmas tree branch for the top left corner. For the greenery, I used the lovely spruce sprigs in the Ellen Hutson Poinsettia and Pine die set with some avocado green card stock, then layered them in the corner of the card. I added a few little baubles using the Birch Press Design Classic Ornament dies, stamping one of the little designs from the coordinating stamp set on the wine colored ornament and heat embossing in silver.

For the greeting, I used one of Simon Says Stamp’s new stamp and die sets from this year’s holiday offerings, and I just love it: Fa La La. The die is large enough to cover most of an A2 card front, and definitely still large enough to make an impact on this A7 card front. I die cut it from some bright blue foil card stock, then stamped the sentiment from the coordinating stamp set on a very thin strip of card stock, adhering both of them towards the bottom right corner of the card front to complete my visual cascade.

Well, that’s all for me today! I will be back tomorrow with Day 7 of The Holiday Card Hustle, and quite possibly my favorite card from the series! I hope you’ll come back tomorrow for some last minute holiday inspiration! Thanks so much for stopping by, and have a marvelous day. 🙂

 

A Blog Named Hero: Winter Holiday!

Good morning! Today marks the start of a new challenge with A Blog Named Hero. This month, we are collaborating with Simon Says Stamp to help celebrate their fabulous Die-cember release! The theme is:

I was lucky enough to get to play with the Sensational Snowflakes die from Simon Says Stamp, and combined with Hero Arts holiday sentiments… it’s like they were MFEO (made for each other. Sleepless in Seattle, anyone?) Instead of keeping the snowflakes in their pretty swirly pattern like the die is intended to be… I decided to use the individual snowflakes to create a wintry background.

I started by taking a panel of A2 card stock and using Distress Oxide inks in Cracked Pistachio, Peacock Feathers, Salty Ocean, and Faded Jeans to blend an ombre background. (I cannot get over how beautifully smooth the Oxide inks blend. Incredible.) I die cut the snowflakes from Sensational Snowflakes several times from plain white card stock, then placed them randomly (but still somewhat strategically… somehow.) all over my blended panel.

Next, I used an older Hero Arts Stamp & Cut set to die cut the silver glitter Holidays, then stamp the “happy happy” on a strip of white card stock using Salty Ocean ink. I adhered the Holidays die cut with liquid adhesive and added the sentiment strip with dimensional foam adhesive.

To add a bit more detail, I used a white gel pen to add some little white dots, as well as adding some of the Hero Arts Winter Sequin Mix sporadically across the card front.

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Simon Says Stamp
Ellen Hutson
Hero Arts
Well, that’s all for me today! I hope you’ve enjoyed this project and will participate in the challenge! All you have to do is create a Hero Arts Winter Holiday project (hopefully using some Simon Says Stamp goodies!) and link it up to our blog post to be eligible to win a prize from our sponsor for the month: Simon Says Stamp! (Be sure to read all of the rules for the contest….we wouldn’t want anyone to be left out for not following the guidelines!) Thanks so much for stopping by, and have a marvelous day!

Holiday Card Hustle, Day 3

Good morning! I hope you’re having a marvelous weekend. We had a really lovely, quiet day yesterday…. with the kids being in school this year, I’ve come to appreciate the days when we have nowhere to be and nothing planned, because we can just laze around the house and not have to live at the mercy of the clock. (well, mostly… bedtime is still a pretty strict affair around here haha!) Today’s installment of the Holiday Card Hustle (click to see the projects from day 1 and day 2)  is fairly simple and straightforward. With only a few steps, you can easily mass-produce this layout.

I started by cutting an A7 panel of wine colored card stock, then trimmed my horizontally-oriented photo down to 3.75″x4.75″. I added a strip of gold glitter paper along the bottom edge of the photo, then turned my attention to the bottom panel. For this panel, I wanted to create a rustic patterned paper using the Concord and 9th Plaid Background stamp (C9|SSS|EH). I started with a panel of linen card stock from Papertrey Ink and stamped the Plaid Background using black ink. I found that the texture from the linen card stock created even more texture on this lovely buffalo plaid stamp, which was perfectly rustic to go with the rustic scenery in our photo.

I trimmed down the plaid panel so that it would fit nicely on my A7 base with my photo and glitter strip. To add my sentiment, I used my MISTI (SSS|EH) to double stamp and emboss this beautiful calligraphic Merry Christmas stamp from Simon Says Stamp using Versafine ink. Double stamping and embossing it really makes the black of the sentiment stand out from the black plaid background, and the embossing adds just a touch of textural difference. I mounted everything to the wine colored panel and stamped my custom made signature stamp on the back. Easy peasy, especially if you get an assembly line going with your MISTI!

Well, that’s all for me today! I will be back tomorrow with some more holiday photo card inspiration. Have a wonderful Sunday!

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!