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Sixth Street Sundries

Emily Midgett

Zig Clean Color

My Monthly Hero March 2018 Blog Hop+Giveaway!

If you’re looking for my Reverse Confetti Countdown post, please click here. 

Good morning again!! You should have arrived here from the crazy talented Yana Smakula’s blog. Today’s the day! The March My Monthly Hero is finally available for purchase! The Creative Team has been tantalizing you with projects for the last several days…. isn’t this kit just fantastic? Truly a must-have. (And I don’t say that lightly!) These kits frequently sell out in the first twenty-four hours, so if you’re even a little on the fence, err on the side of caution and purchase yours ASAP!

This kit is chock full of fabulous basics perfect for a beginning stamper or an experienced crafter:

Kit Contents:
6″ x 8″ Clear Stamp Set
4 Fancy Word Dies
7 Fancy Shape Dies
4 8.5″ x 5.5″ Sheets Basic Kraft Cardstock (80 lb cover)
4 8.5″ x 5.5″ Sheets Basic White Cardstock (80 lb cover)
4 8.5″ x 5.5″ Sheets Basic Black Cardstock (80 lb cover)
Sparkly Sequins 1.5 oz
Silver Sparkle Embossing Powder 0.5 oz
Unicorn White Ink Cube

Kit Value: The value of the kit is $70, but it is sold at $34.99. Fabulous value, right? Those word dies alone are worth it, in my view! Plus all of the other fabulous extras you get…. icing on the cake!

I used several of the main elements of the kit in my Countdown post yesterday, which you can see here, and today I’ve combined some of the main kit pieces with some of the add ons along with some older Hero Arts sets. I love when new and old pieces can work together seamlessly! I created a baby card duet for today’s Blog Hop using the add-on Alphabet Window Fancy Die. Any time I see anything “alphabet” it immediately makes me think…. kids… baby…. baby card! Let’s get started with the details!

One of my favorite ways to use detailed cover plate dies like the Alphabet Window Fancy Die is to create a subtly textured white-on-white background. For this first project, I started by die cutting the Alphabet Window Fancy Die from plain white card stock and mounting it on an A2 card base. I stamped the darling little elephant (and several other critters) from Fun in the Rain onto some watercolor paper using sticky black ink, then heat embossed it in clear and cut it out with the coordinating Frame Cuts.  I watercolored my critters using the Zig Clean Color markers and a damp paintbrush.

For the greeting, I die cut one of the flagged banners from the included dies in the main kit and stamped a sentiment from the older Little One stamp set in black. I also cut a gorgeous scripty “hello” die from some black card stock. I adhered the hello die cut with dimensional adhesive, then added the elephant using dimensional foam adhesive. I snipped off the end of the flagged die cut and nestled it beneath the elephant. The last little touch was to add a few Blue Ombre sequins to help the blue umbrella pop even more.

For this next project, I used the same Fun in the Rain stamp set to color a little duckie family (side note- as a mom of twins, I always love finding/seeing baby cards that are geared towards families with multiples. This little duck family is just perfect for a baby shower card for a family getting ready to welcome multiples! Also, my baby shower theme was “Make Way for Ducklings” and this card would have been perfect haha!) I repeated the process for the card base, die cutting the new  Alphabet Window Fancy Die from white card stock and adhering it to a white card base. Next, I stamped the sweet Winnie The Pooh sentiment from Little One onto a rectangle of card stock and matted it with black card stock. I adhered both the greeting and the little duck family using dimensional adhesive.

Well, that’s all for me today! I hope you have gotten some inspiration from my projects! I think the March My Monthly Hero kit is going to be an awesome addition to your stamp collection. Remember, these are limited edition kits, so if you are waffling about whether to buy it or not, just go ahead and get it in case it sells out! Once they’re gone, they’re gone! You can also subscribe to ensure that you will receive your My Monthly Hero kit.

You also have the opportunity to win a kit from Hero Arts! All you have to do to be entered in the giveaway is leave a comment on the blog hop stops. One random winner will be selected from amongst the comments on ALL blogs, so the more comments you leave, the more chances you have to win your own kit! The giveaway closes on March 11th at 11:59 pm, and the winner will be announced the next day. (Hero Arts is so awesome that if you’ve already purchased your kit, they will reimburse you for your purchase if you are the random winner!) Your next stop is the fabulous Wanda Guess. Here’s the full blog lineup:

The Hero Arts Blog
Jennifer McGuire
Yana Smakula
Emily Midgett<—- you are here
Wanda Guess
Janette Kausen
Ilina Crouse
Lydia Fiedler
Jessica Frost-Ballas
Michelle Short
Laurie Willison
Jana Millen
Clare Prezzia
May Park
Amy Tsuruta
Libby Hickson

Have a marvelous day, friends! Thanks for stopping by!



Honey Bee Stamps Cheerful Love Blog Hop!

Hi Crafty Friends!! The Honey Bee Stamps Cheerful Love Release is now available in the store. To celebrate the new release, we are having a two day blog hop called Cheerful Love. So please hop along with us both days to be inspired! Be sure to visit each blog & leave a comment to be entered to win!!! We will be giving away two $50 gift cards to the Honey Bee Stamps store, one from each day. The winners will be posted on our blog Tuesday, February 27th.

For my first project, I couldn’t resist putting my Zig markers to that sweet little Platypus from Penny the Platypus. Isn’t she just so darn precious?? The sweet, innocent expression on her face just melts my heart. I stamped her using sticky black ink onto some watercolor paper, then added clear embossing powder. I also stamped a balloon and a little bouquet of flowers, also from the Penny the Platypus set, onto the same watercolor paper. I watercolored all of the images with my Zig markers and used a damp paintbrush to blend everything out.

I cut an A2 sized panel from some more watercolor paper and added a sweet “feel better soon” sentiment from Cheerful Sentiments on the background wash using waterproof ink. Next, I used the same three shades from the bouquet to create an ethereal wash for the background panel, using very little Zig marker and lots of water to blend everything. I die cut the balloon, flowers, and Penny herself using the coordinating dies and popped her up on the watercolored panel. I added a few Unicorn Jewels to add some sparkle. Pretty straightforward, but that little platypus is just so darn cute that you don’t need much!!

For my next project today, I used the new Congrats Grad stamp set in conjunction with some of the cute accessories from the Penny the Platypus stamp and die set. I started with an alcohol inked panel from my stash (I like to make a bunch at a time and use them at leisure) and die cut it using the Double Stitched Rectangle dies. I then used a massive amount of very strong adhesive (Score Tape, in this case) to adhered it to my card front. I did this to add extra stability to help prevent warping when I embossed the greeting from Congrats Grad onto my alcohol ink panel using white embossing powder. I also cut a shimmery silver frame using the same Double Stitched Rectangle dies and created a shaker out of it, filling it with both Bokeh Lights Confetti, Clear Bubbles Sequins, and Frozen Tree tiny leaves sequins.

I stamped more balloons, the graduation cap, and the diploma scroll from Penny the Platypus onto watercolor paper and colored them with colors that coordinate with the alcohol ink background. I die cut them out with the coordinating dies, then added them to the front of the shaker in a cluster.

Well, that’s all for my projects today! We have a super fun two-day blog hop planned to help celebrate this darling release. You should have arrived here from the Honey Bee Stamps blog and your next stop is Kelley Kohout’s blog. Here’s the full hop list, in case you get lost:

Honey Bee Stamps
Emily Midgett (that’s me!)
Kelley Kohout
JoAnn Danchik
Carly Minner
Carrie Bryant
Carol Hintermeier
Ilda Dias

Be sure to visit each blog & leave a comment to be entered to win!!! We will be giving away two $50 gift cards to the Honey Bee Stamps store, one from each day. The winners will be posted on our blog Tuesday, February 27th.

 


My favorites for 2017!

Good morning! Umm…. it’s the last day of 2017. HOW is that possible? It seems like just yesterday that I was packing up our holiday decorations at our old house and trying to decide where to put all of the kids’ new toys. This year has held many changes for me, both personally and in blog-land. We moved to a tiny town, which is somewhat isolated from the amenities of being near a larger city to which I had grown so accustomed. But we love our new house, and it’s really just perfect for us in our current season of life. My kiddos started school, which is somewhat liberating and also terrifying, because how are they old enough to be in school?! I also joined some new design teams and left some. I made my first videos. I really dug in to my coloring mediums and tried to improve in my accuracy and technique. I’ve been given some absolutely amazing opportunities this year, and I could not be more grateful for them. But…… I think 2018 is going to really knock the socks off of 2017, which is saying something!

Here are my top ten favorite projects from 2017! (Click on each photo to be taken to the individual blog posts.)

Phew! Thats a lot of projects! Looking over all of them, I’m happy to see that there are a few non-flower projects that made this list… even a few critters! I am slowly growing to love critters. They present a new challenge for me! I still love my flowers, in any and all mediums, but it’s nice to know that I can work with critters and actually like the results!

I hope you all enjoyed this little trip down memory lane as much as I did! It’s interesting to me to see how I’ve changed over the last year… different photography style, different coloring mediums, different style in general! (I don’t think my love of flowers and/or coloring will ever really go away though haha!) I absolutely cannot WAIT to see what 2018 brings! Some thrilling developments are in the works, and I am chomping at the bit to share them with you. Soon enough!!! Eek!

I hope you have an absolutely marvelous New Year’s Eve celebration and a truly wonderful New Year!

Borrowing.

Good morning! It’s Friday. Yes, you read that right. Thank goodness. My kiddos turn four next week, (ahem, HOW is that possible?) so we are taking them on a little trip this weekend to celebrate their birthday instead of having a big party (aka- a big party where they would receive lots of gifts that I don’t know where we would put them lol). I would rather spend money on taking them somewhere fun than wasting a few hundred dollars on a party, you know? Anyway, so yeah. That’s this weekend. Yay!

For my project today, I finished a project that I started at the crafty retreat I went to a few weeks ago. I got to watercolor just for fun, so I stamped this beautiful floral spray from Altenew’s Blooming Bouquet (ALT|SSS|EH) using Versafine ink onto some Canson Montval watercolor paper. I colored it with an interesting combination of mustard, fuchsia, and royal purple Zig markers (SSS|EH|AZ). I thought the mustard added a touch of autumn to the color combination, but was still bright enough not to bog everything down or look out of place. What do you think?

I watercolored my panel while I was at the retreat, so when I got home, all I had to do was add the finishing touches to make it into a card! I knew I wanted to frame those pretty flowers and bring out the mustard yellow (I’ve really been in a mustard-y mood lately.), so I die cut a frame from some mustard yellow card stock. Next, I cut a strip of heavyweight vellum and flagged the end, then added a black shimmer Thanks die cut from Altenew’s Script Words 2 dies (SSS|EH). I heat embossed the final portion of the sentiment using “you made my day” from Altenew’s Bejeweled stamp set (SSS|EH) using some sparkly black embossing powder. I adhered the die cut to the vellum, then wrapped the end of the vellum around the edge of the die cut frame to hide the adhesive, then used dimensional adhesive to adhere both the frame and the greeting to the card front.

Finally, I added a few Disco Ball jewels from Lucy Abrams to add a touch of sparkle.

Well, that’s all for me today! Today is the start of the November Honey Bee release, so I will be back tomorrow with a couple of pretty holiday projects from their new release! Have a marvelous Friday!

Christmas is officially in season!

Hi there! I hope you had a happy Halloween and have recovered from your sugar intake! My kiddos are at that age where Halloween is cute AND fun…. not nearly as much work to get a reaction from them like last year! An almost 3 year old doesn’t really “get” Halloween, but an almost 4 year old definitely does haha! Batman and Mademoiselle Ballerina received lots of oohs and aahs in our neighborhood, as well as plenty of candy. It should last us til… oh, next week. Ha! I feel no shame in posting holiday cards after Halloween, so be prepared! 😉

Today, I have another holiday card using the Concord and 9th Ornamental stamp and die set (C9|SSS|EH). I started by die cutting the main ornament image using the largest die in the set from watercolor paper. I then used silver detail embossing powder to stamp the lovely florals from the Ornamental stamp set, then added the coordinating “merry and bright” greeting using silver sparkle embossing powder, stamped and heat embossed twice to get extra thick coverage.

I used my Zig markers (SSS|EH|AZ) and damp paintbrush to color the image in lovely jewel tones. I cut a piece of silver glitter paper slightly smaller than A2 size, then matted it on some wine colored card stock.

I popped up the ornament with dimensional adhesive, then added a white velvet bow. I love how ornate this ornament is, but the card construction itself is fairly simple. Gorgeous stamp design.

That’s all for me today! Have a marvelous Wednesday!