Sixth Street Sundries

Emily Midgett

A7 thin frames

NEW Limited Edition Stained Glass Holiday Card Kit from Simon Says Stamp!

This post was sponsored by Simon Says Stamp. Thanks, Simon!

Hi friends! Simon Says Stamp shared a brand new, Limited Edition Stained Glass Holiday Card Kit (available NOW for preorder to be shipped later in October or early November!) late last night that is absolutely jam-packed with goodies perfect for making your holiday cards! The value in the monthly card kits is always incredible, but I am continually impressed at the amazing value the standalone card kits. You can view all of the specific contents of the kit HERE, but you’ll receive plenty of components to create a huge variety of unique designs, including a large stamp set, stencil, standalone die, shimmer spray, many types of papers, and all sorts of embellishments to make beautiful and serene holiday cards. I have created three different cards to share with you, but I will start today with my super colorful projects inspired by stained glass windows at my church. Let’s get started with the details!

*I have linked all of the products used at the bottom of the post for your convenience using affiliate links. Thank you for shopping with my links! I truly appreciate your support for my work!*

Our church unfortunately had a very damaging fire (on Christmas Eve, no less 🙁 so heartbreaking!) before we moved to our town, and we began attending church there after the entire sanctuary had been rebuilt. It is a beautiful sanctuary, at once large and airy but still somewhat cozy and inviting. One of my favorite parts about our church is the absolutely breathtaking stained glass windows that take up a huge portion of the wall behind the pulpit. On sunny days, particularly, the effect of the sunshine illuminating the jewel-bright glass is absolutely awe-inspiring and provides an incredible spiritual lift. It makes me so grateful that the parishioners paid such attention to these kinds of details during the rebuilding process!

I knew that I wanted to pair my OLO markers with vellum to create a unique stained glass effect using the window images from the stamp set included with the Stained Glass Holiday Card Kit. To do this, I heat embossed the window images onto vellum using gold glitter embossing powder, die cut them, then flipped the die cuts over to add vibrant color on the back side of the die cuts. That last bit is important; adding the color to the back of the die cuts helps to create that stained glass “glow” through the semi-opaque vellum when you flip the colored images over! It was a technique that I learned long ago from a video by Nichole Heady, so I can’t take credit for it, but isn’t the effect just so beautiful?

After I had completed the stained glass windows, I trimmed 1/4″ off of the top and bottom of the long side of an A2 card front and added some strips of coordinating gold glitter cardstock to peek out from behind. I used some tiny dots of liquid adhesive behind the solid embossed areas to adhere the windows to the card front (you could use vellum adhesive if you have some, too!) and added a gold glitter-embossed greeting beneath the dove. Finally, I added some of the gold mirror pearls included in the kit on either side of the dimensional greeting to help draw the eye to the “Rejoice” sentiment. So much sparkle and vivid color, which I think is a perfect representation of a church at Christmas!

For my second project, I utilized the stencil, stamps, and shimmer spray included with the Stained Glass Holiday Card Kit. I began my placing the beautiful Angels and Stars stencil over a panel of Midnight Green cardstock, both included with the kit, then generously spritzing the entire panel with Fossilized Amber Distress Spritz (also included with the kit!!) to create a gorgeous, golden sheen. After the panel had dried completely, I used the included gold paint marker to add dots between the images, filling in any gaps, so that my solid embossed angel die cut would be a bit more visible amongst the textured and patterned background. I think the background looks like high-end Christmas wrapping paper!

After completing the background, I used Hero Arts’s Iridescent Gold embossing powder to emboss the angel and two sentiments from the Stained Glass Christmas stamp set onto some more of the Midnight Green cardstock. The shimmer on these embossed images is unreal and matches the golden background perfectly. I die cut the angel and large sentiment using the coordinating Stained Glass Christmas die (sold separately). To help draw the eye to the angel and sentiment die cuts, I added two different sizes of gold foil frame cut using the A7 Thin Frames die set, which I’ve kept wired together to be able to cut two different frame widths in a wide variety of sizes. I offset the frames to the right side of the card, then added the embossed die cuts with some foam adhesive. Finally, I tucked a shimmering gold twine bow beneath the greeting and added a few Sunbeam Pawsitively Dazzling Gems for one last touch of sparkle!

Well, that’s all for my projects today. I have one more project to share with you using items from the Stained Glass Holiday Card Kit tomorrow. I also wanted to share that if you would prefer to purchase individual elements of this card kit (and nearly every Simon card kit!), you can always do that! The biggest advantage to purchasing the kit is the incredible value; the folks at Simon have jam-packed the kit so that the individual items included add up to well over $100, but they are selling the kit as a bargain for only $59.99. You can pre-order the entire kit, or you can pre-order the individual items, which I’ve linked below as well; they anticipate shipping to begin at the end of the month or early in November. But, as usual, the kits are limited edition, so if you want to take advantage of the excellent value, don’t hesistate!

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

Simon Says Stamp STAMPtember Blog Party + Free Gift With Purchase!

This post was sponsored by Simon Says Stamp. Thanks, Simon!

Well hello friends, and welcome to the Simon Says Stamp STAMPtember Blog Party! We are partying it up to celebrate the 15th STAMPtember celebration! If you’re new to STAMPtember, it’s an entire month dedicated to the joys of this stamping hobby, filled with tons of fabulous products, giveaways, and fun surprises to inspire your crafting! Today’s party starts over on the Simon Says Stamp blog, and it features an absolutely crazy amount of inspiration using the new release. Not only do you have the opportunity to feast your eyes on beautiful inspiration projects using the new goodies from the STAMPtember release, you also have the opportunity to do a “scavenger hunt” of sorts; each party stop has a unique graphic and code featuring a fabulous gift with purchase! You can see all of the details for my scavenger hunt code at the bottom of this post. 🙂

For my projects today, I did some therapeutic no-line watercoloring with the new Grateful Florals stamps and dies and some of my favorite Daniel Smith watercolors. Let’s get started with the details on my projects!

To start, I stamped all of the floral images from the new Grateful Florals stamps and dies onto some Arches Hot Press watercolor paper using Contour Ink from Hero Arts. I taped the panel down to my watercolor board to avoid warping, then used several shades of burnt orange, deep magenta, and coral red with some verdant greens to add lots of vivid color to the images. The key with no-line watercolor is to keep the wet sections separate from each other to avoid the wet areas bleeding into one another, which helps to keep the definition between the individual petals and leaves. I like to do lots of layers of color, which helps to develop the contrast between the areas in front versus behind. As a final touch, I added some highlights to the edges of some of the petals using white gouache, helping to increase the levels of contrast!

For my first card, I decided to take advantage of the generous size of the main floral bouquet by creating an A7 card. I began by running a panel of vellum through my die cutting machine using the new Tiny Tufts embossing folder. I then used my trimmer to cut out the center of an A7 card front, creating a window in the center of my card behind which I could adhere the embossed vellum panel. I adhered the vellum with some Tear-rific Tape and enhanced the frame with two widths of glittering A7 Thin Frames.

After I had created my card base, I adhered the large watercolored and die cut bouquet from the Grateful Florals product suite using some foam adhesive. I heat embossed a sentiment, also from Grateful Florals, onto some coordinating magenta cardstock using white embossing powder and die cut it with its coordinating die. I tucked a delicate twine bow beneath the sentiment and finished the card off with some Taffy Pawsitively Dazzling Gems for added sparkle! I love the drama and extra large size of this card!

Because I had also watercolored the extra little standalone flowers and foliage, I decided to create a sweet little coordinating gift card envelope. I die cut the Gift Card Envelope Die from some white cardstock and trimmed down a panel to fit on the front using some more white cardstock. I ran that smaller panel through my die cut machine, again using the Tiny Tufts embossing folder for some lovely, somewhat neutral botanical texture behind my floral watercolored pieces. I popped up the standalone watercolored pieces from the Grateful Florals product suite using some foam adhesive, finally adding another heat embossed sentiment, a twine bow, and some more Taffy Pawsitively Dazzling Gems. How special would it be to receive this with a gift card in it?

Well, that’s all for my projects today! I have tons more inspiration to share using the new items from the STAMPtember release, so if you’re not subscribed to my blog already, you can do that by entering your email address in the box on the top left hand side of my blog to make sure that you don’t miss anything!

To help celebrate and make this party truly exciting, each participating blog has it’s own fabulous freebie gift with purchase! To receive your freebie from my specific graphic, you can follow the instructions on the graphic below:

Isn’t that Beautiful Friend stamp and die set simply fabulous?? And what an incredible value! All you have to do to receive it is spend $100 in the Simon Says Stamp store, which is super, super easy to do with the incredible new STAMPtember release!

Be sure to check out all of the participating blogs over on the Simon Says Stamp blog to find all of the fantastic freebies that are available as a free gift with purchase to celebrate the 15th STAMPtember celebration! Thanks so much for stopping by, and happy STAMPtember!!!

Bunnies in the Clover with Simon Says Stamp!

This post was sponsored by Simon Says Stamp. Thanks, Simon!

Hi friends! Today, I have some Easter inspiration that combines two of the new stamp sets from the Simon Says Stamp Splendor release: Lots of Luck and Bunny Kisses. Whenever I am mixing stamp sets, I try to ensure that all of the sets with which I am working are illustrated in a similar style. I don’t like to mix outline images with solid stamped or standalone die cut images, simply because in my mind, they are in different imaginative dimensions. When I saw the bold graphic style of these two stamp sets, I knew that they would work beautifully together for a large-scale A7 card! I also was inspired by a cute family story: my husband used to have a small garden at our old house that was right underneath our dining room window. One night after supper, he went out to tend to the tomatoes and lettuce plants and found a family of teeny bunnies!! The purple twilight of that night has been stuck in my mind all of these years later (my big kids were only 2.5 at the time!), and I was definitely channeling that memory today! Let’s get started on the details for my project.

The new Lots of Luck stamp set features some pretty clover flowers, clover, and foliage in a layered stamp style. I am loving the fact that Simon Says Stamp has been printing the colored layering schematics on the back of the stamp packaging as well as labeling each layer on the stamp set itself to make layering your images super simple and quick! I like to start projects like this by stamping lots of different elements and then arranging them later. It helps me to keep the process organized in my head to keep all of the die cut stamped images together, so I stamped the sweet bunny from Bunny Kisses and lots of clover flowers, leaves, and grasses from Lots of Luck using Pawsitively Saturated Ink Trio 21,Pawsitively Saturated Ink Trio 16, Fawn and Cozy Pawsitively Saturated inks, and finishing the bunny’s ears and nose off with Ballet Rainbow Splash Ink, then die cut them with the coordinating dies from each set.

Because of the large scale and the framed scene that I had in my head, I started my card front by trimming down an A7 card front from Hammermill white cardstock, then masked around the edges using some Very Very Low Tack Tape. I used a blending brush to lightly blend Orchid ink at the top of my card front, creating a subtle twilight sky. After I had finished blending, I removed the mask, leaving a crisp white frame around the edges. I wanted to accent the focal point as well as make my canvas for my scene a bit smaller, so I die cut the A7 Thin Frames dies from some Pinkfresh Studio Champagne Glitter Cardstock. I found a frame to fit around where I had masked off and adhered it with some liquid adhesive.

Before arranging my stamped die cuts, I wanted to add some more grass behind the front rose of flowers and foliage, so I stamped a single layer of grass in the background, adding some more depth to my scene. I layered the die cuts on top of the stamped grasses, adhering them with both liquid and foam adhesive for extra dimension. I heat embossed a greeting from Bunny Kisses using platinum embossing powder and die cut both sentiments with the coordinating dies. Finally, I added a smattering of iridescent lavender gems, which I think look like dew drops or perhaps even some whimsical fireflies!

Well, that’s all for my project today. I love when different products work so seamlessly together, don’t you? Thanks so much for stopping by today, and have a marvelous day!

Blush Foliage with New Splendor Release from Simon Says Stamp!

This post was sponsored by Simon Says Stamp. Thanks, Simon!

Hi friends! I have some more inspiration for you using a fun new product from Simon Says Stamp’s Splendor release. The new Friendship Leafy Cluster Foil Transfer Panels work beautifully with the rest of the Friendship Leafy Cluster product suite, including the dies and stencils. These panels are printed with toner ink, so they will work in your hot foiling machine of choice (not the Glimmer, but rather a Minc, laminator, or other toner-foiling machine!) with whatever color of foil you select. I used a Minc, but there are a bunch of different options on the market now from some of our favorite companies! So many fun creative possibilities!! I chose to foil the cards with some Rose Quartz toner-reactive foil and paired it with lots of pretty rose gold embellishments. Let’s get started on the details for my card!

The Friendship Leafy Cluster product suite features a stamp set with coordinating layering stencils to make coloring these images super easy, as well as coordinating dies to cut these detailed foliage sprigs out very quickly. After I had hot foiled the Friendship Leafy Cluster Foil Transfer Panels using the metallic Rose Quartz toner-reactive foil, I used a blending brush to blend Blush & Cheeky Pawsitively Saturated Ink, creating some whimsical peachy-pink sprigs of foliage. I die cut the images out with their coordinating dies from the Friendship Leafy Cluster product suite.

To accent my rose gold leaves, I die cut a thin frame using Simon Says Stamp’s Rose Gold Metallic cardstock and the A7 Thin Frames dies. I also lightly blended some more Cheeky ink on my white A2 card base, then splattered the blended area with some coordinating rose gold glitter watercolor to add some textural interest and sparkle to the background.

For the greeting, I heat embossed a sentiment from Friendship Leafy Cluster using rose gold embossing powder from Hero Arts onto some more crisp white cardstock. I die cut the script sentiment using the coordinating die and trimmed down the remainder of the sentiment using my guillotine trimmer for super crisp edges. I adhered the foiled frame directly over the area upon which I’d blended and splattered, then arranged my leafy swag and sentiment pieces, adhering all with foam squares. Finally, I added some pink gems from the new Cool Tones Pawsitively Dazzling Gems set for one last touch of sparkle!

Well, that’s all for my project today. If you haven’t tried out toner foiling, you’re missing out, because there are so many fun new products that you can use with these machines, including these new Friendship Leafy Cluster Foil Transfer Panels. Thanks so much for stopping by today, and have a marvelous day!

Songs of the Season, January 2024: There’s No Place Like Home for the Holidays!

This post was sponsored by Simon Says Stamp. Thanks, Simon!

Hi friends! I’m back with this month’s installment of Songs of the Season- holiday cheer throughout the year, inspired by the songs of Christmas! Music was such a huge part of my life for so long that it seems appropriate for me to combine my past with my present. I am not ashamed to say that I have my Christmas decorations still up; we will be taking them down this weekend, but I couldn’t resist leaving the glow and festiveness of the lights up for just a couple more weeks after Christmas. This month’s song is a classic: There’s No Place like Home for the Holidays by Perry Como. Listen to it below:

The song reminds me of Christmas at my Grammy and Papa’s house as a child; my uncles and their families all lived in different parts of the country, but each Christmas, they would pack up and descend on our hometown to spend the Christmas holidays with us. It never truly felt like Christmas until they arrived, and as an adult, I still yearn for that kind of gathering, though we are all scattered all over the globe.

“Oh, there’s no place like home for the holidays,
’cause no matter how far away you roam,
if you want to be happy in a million ways
For the holidays, you can’t beat home sweet home.”

I suppose it is now my husband’s and my job to create that sense of family for our little ones, and I strive to create those kinds of precious memories for our kiddos!

“Tiny houses” are more than just a building trend; they are everywhere in the stamping world, too! Simon Says Stamp has a few different sets that feature some adorable houses, and today I created snowy little villages using different techniques to create t both a simple A2 card and a more involved A7 card. Today’s projects feature two different holiday house sets from Simon Says Stamp: Home For Christmas and Cozy Christmas. The Home For Christmas set features simple layered stamps that would be great for mass production, while the Cozy Christmas Set features outline images that are perfect for coloring both as simple images with black lines as well as the no-line watercoloring that I’ve chosen to do today. I kept both projects to a simple, festive, modern color scheme with cherry red, mint, and coral, with plenty of sparkle and shine added in for festive measure.

For my first, somewhat simpler card, I used the Home For Christmas set with bunches of Pawsitively Saturated Inks: Fawn, Cozy, Spring, Dublin, Watermelon, and Blush, stamping each layer in just the right spot by using my MISTI. I also stamped a couple of greetings from the set using the dark gray ink to keep things a bit lighter than if I’d chosen to use stark black ink. I die cut each image using the coordinating dies, fussy cutting the curved sentiment with my sharp scissors.

For the background, I wanted to create a bit of a snowglobe illusion, so I stamped the circular snowflake image from Don’t Flurry Be Happy onto my white card front using embossing ink and white satin pearl embossing powder. The shine from the pearlescent embossing powder helps the embossed image stand out just enough from the white background so as to add some subtle texture and pattern behind my little neighborhood. I arranged my cluster of houses and holiday decor on my card front, popping them up with foam adhesive. For some snowy sparkle, I used white glitter with the Hero Arts Sparkle Lacquer pen. I love the shimmering texture this adds to the card without adding tons of bulk!

For my second card, I wanted to create a vintage feel with some no-line watercolored images, so I stamped several of the images from the beautiful Cozy Christmas Set onto watercolor paper using Contour Ink. I then pulled lots of different Distress Ink cubes to finalize my color palette: Festive Berries, Worn Lipstick, Saltwater Taffy, Scattered Straw, Pine Needles, Salvaged Patina, Pumice Stone, Hickory Smoke. Watercoloring with Distress Inks is such fun; the incredible vibrance and super easy blending make them really easy to use for both beginning watercolorists and experienced watercolorists alike. I simply tap my ink pads on a ceramic palette or plastic plate (your glass craft mat would work, as well!) and pick up the color with my damp paintbrush as I would from pan paints! The color moves beautifully on the paper and reacts so well with water, making it ideal for no-line coloring.

(Also, just FYI-Simon Says Stamp is celebrating 20 Years of Distress with a contest over on Instagram. You can check out all of the details HERE. There is a $500 gift card giveaway *every month*!!! Don’t miss out!)

After I had finished watercoloring my images, I turned my attention to the card base. I wanted to keep things super simple so that my vibrant neighborhood was the star of the show, so I selected a gold foil frame cut using the A7 Thin Frames, making the canvas for my scene a bit smaller and less intimidating. Before I adhered the frame, I masked off the edges on three of the sides of my A7 card front and blended some Concord and 9th Aqua Sky ink using a blending brush. I removed the masking tape around the edges, adhered my gold frame, and popped up the houses in a row using foam squares.

I popped up a greeting from the Inside Christmas Greetings which I embossed using Iridescent Gold embossing powder from Hero Arts, tucking it neatly behind the little car with it’s Christmas tree. To add a little extra sparkle, I added some white glitter to the watercolored snow using a Hero Arts Sparkle Lacquer pen and embellished the ornaments and gifts with some Star Sparks Decogel pen.

I absolutely adore how this card turned out!! The A7 canvas helps to keep the houses from feeling too crowded, and the intricate watercoloring makes such an impact.

Well, that’s all for my projects for this month’s installment of Songs of the Season. If you want some more holiday inspiration, check out my friend Jenn’s Get Cracking on Christmas challenge! I love having any excuse to keep my Christmas craft supplies out all year long! Thanks so much for stopping by today, and have a marvelous day!