Sixth Street Sundries

Emily Midgett

simon says stamp

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!

The last gasp of summer.

Hi! Feels like a long time since I posted just for fun… I’ve been SO busy this week getting the Great Craft Room Purge of 2017 organized and everything shipped. Let me tell ya, I am definitely one of those right-brained artistic types when it comes to organization. I enjoy organizing, but I usually end up making more of a mess than I do actually making things neater lol. Transfer that to the bazillion emails I’ve had from people wanting to purchase items…. my brain has been buzzing since Sunday lol. If you want to see what’s left (and there’s still a huge amount of stamps and dies left!), you can click here.

Anyway, I had some lovely blooms from Altenew’s Adore You stamp set that I’d colored for the most recent The Daily Marker 30 Day challenge using my Zig markers. I love my Zigs when I want a bright burst of bold color, and this color combination of fuchsia and a sunset orange color are just so pretty together. I started by heat embossing several of the blooms using gold detail embossing powder onto Canson Montval watercolor paper, then colored them using my Zig markers and damp Silverwhite paintbrush. I fussy cut them and began work on the background.

For the background, I used Altenew’s beautiful Midnight Violet ink to lightly blend a little halo in the center of a white, A2 top folding notecard. I then arranged my blooms on the card front and used Press ‘n Seal to pick them up without losing my carefully-arranged bouquet. I added dimensional adhesive to the back and pressed them down on the card front while still attached to the Press ‘n Seal, then peeled it away. I added a gorgeous new-to-me die from My Favorite Things: Big Hugs. I cut it from some sparkly gold glitz paper from DCWV. The final touch was a smattering of sequins from my stash

I hope you’ve enjoyed this card! A last gasp of summer, as we’ve been having temps in the 80’s here this week. (blah.) Here’s to the weather cooling down soon! Have a marvelous day! I will be back on Saturday with a post for World Cardmaking Day. 🙂 Stay tuned!

Simon Says Stamp and Concord & 9th Stamptember Collaboration!

Good evening! I have something super exciting to share with you at this late hour…. I’m sure everyone knows about the fabulousness that is Stamptember. Basically, Simon Says Stamp has collaborated with several different companies to create several gorgeous stamp sets. They’re limited edition, and they’re fantastic. Today, I have the pleasure of helping to debut the Stamptember collaboration between Simon Says Stamp and one of my absolute favorite companies: Concord & 9th: Oh Hello!

Isn’t this set just so versatile!?? I can’t wait to play with it more. There are so many awesome possibilities. My first thought when I saw it was bokeh. That round stamp was just screaming for a bokeh technique. I started by cutting a white A2 panel, then using Tim Holtz blending sponges and Frosty Pink, Coral Berry, and Ruby Red inks from Altenew blended a pretty background.

After blending my background panel, I used the circular stamp in Oh Hello to stamp random circles using the same inks that I had used to blend the background, stamping off once with the darker of the two colors. I then stamped a few more circles using white pigment ink to further create the bokeh look.

The collaboration set has some beautiful sentiments included in with the brushstroke images. I stamped the “happy everything” onto some pale pink card stock using gold glitter embossing powder, then fussy cut it out. I also stamped and embossed the “wishing you” and “friend” using the same embossing powder onto some thin strips of the same pink card stock. I trimmed the bokeh panel down and matted it on both a pink foil panel and a gold glitter panel. I popped up the sentiment cuts with dimensional adhesive, and finally added a few Blossom sequins from Lucy Abrams.

Well, that’s it! I’m so grateful to Heidi from Simon Says Stamp for allowing me to be part of this awesome collaboration. Concord and 9th is definitely one of my most favorite companies, so that makes this even more exciting and special to me. 🙂  Don’t forget, if you love Oh Hello, I’d advise getting it ASAP, because these Stamptember sets are limited edition. If you’re on the fence, better to just jump off and treat yourself! As a wise friend recently told me, you only regret the things in life that you didn’t do.

Have a marvelous evening, friends!