Sixth Street Sundries

Emily Midgett

baby card

Welcome Baby Ducky Shaker Card with New Simon Says Stamp!

This post was sponsored by Simon Says Stamp. Thanks, Simon! *I have gathered links to all of the products used at the bottom of the post for your convenience, using affiliate links at no extra cost to you. Thank you for shopping with my links! I truly appreciate your support for my work!*

Hi friends! I am back with a sweet shaker project using one of the add-ons from the June 2026 Simon Says Stamp Card Kit of the Month. The main kit has sold out, but one of the best things about the Simon Says Stamp kits is that you can buy the individual items a la carte in addition to the add-on products. I am a sucker for a cute little ducky, especially when paired with some other baby imagery. I have mentioned before that my older twins’ baby shower and nursery theme was gray and yellow ducklings and flowers, so I always get a little nostalgic any time I am presented with an opportunity to work with duck imagery. I created this sweet shaker card using a single ducky die cut from the new Darling Duckies embossing folder and die set. Sometimes one is all you need! Let’s get started with the details!

To begin, I die cut an individual ducky using the dies from the Darling Duckies product set, then placed the die cut in its appropriate spot in the embossing folder and ran it through my die cutting machine to add that fabulous raised texture and shape to the die cut. I used my OLO Markers to add some simple coloring to the embossed duck die cut, keeping the colors simple and adding only hints of shadow and shape.

After I had created my ducky, I used the older Honeycomb Tag set to create a window in the side of my A2 card front. To create this scalloped, hexagonal shape without having the tag topper, I placed the die to the side of my card front, overlapping the edge with the top of the tag with the edge of the cardstock so that it would hang over the side and not be visible on my card front! Once I had created my window opening, I used some leftover packaging to create a flat shaker on another piece of white A2 cardstock, filling the shaker pouch with Golden Hour Embellishment Mix. Once the shaker was created and filled, I adhered the card front with the window directly over the top so that I could keep the shaker bits visible. I nestled the scalloped frame die cut in the correct spot, then adhered it with thin foam adhesive squares to add a little extra dimension.

Once I had adhered the window card front and scalloped frame to the shaker base, I created a sentiment using the older Oh, Baby set, embossing it with shimmering gold embossing powder on white cardstock. I also die cut a few individual flowers from the Honeycomb Tag set, coloring them using the same yellow alcohol markers used on the ducky die cut. I think they look just like delicate little buttercups! I popped up the greeting die cuts with foam adhesive, overlapping the shaker window, then arranged the ducky and buttercups around the greeting with more foam adhesive. A sweet little bow finished it off!

Well, that’s all for my project today! I just love when an entire project is built around one tiny die cut. This project is a bit cleaner than my typical projects, but sometimes white space is required. Thanks so much for stopping by today, and have a marvelous day!

Man Card Monday: Baby Boy Style!

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

Hi friends! I am back with another installment of Man Card Monday, this time in the form of a baby card that is perfectly neutral for a boy or a girl! It’s been a few months since I had a project for Man Card Monday… It’s been several stressful months between my mom’s health issues, surgeries for my husband and daughter, some health difficulties of my own, and then the regular stress that comes with having four kids with tons of activities and strong personalities… so I’ve been “comfort crafting.” Sometimes, it’s challenging for me to work with cute images; I find myself naturally gravitating towards floral images, but those don’t really work for guy cards, do they? With everything going on, I have found myself in a “comfort crafting” zone, just working with images that fed my creative soul. (Not to say I don’t enjoy making masculine cards… they just require more mental and creative energy than I’ve had available to me lately!) I couldn’t resist the adorable momma and baby images in the new Love You, Mama stamp set, and I thought they’d be perfect for a gender-neutral baby card since we’re past Mother’s Day! Let’s get started with the details on my card!

*I have gathered links to 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!*

I knew that I wanted to do some detailed pencil coloring with these sweet storybook images, so I stamped the momma bear with her baby bear from Love You, Mama on some Simon Says Stamp Lemon Chiffon cardstock using Simon Says Stamp White Pigment Ink, then used my favorite colored pencils to add some detailed coloring to the image on the yellow cardstock. I love using colored pencils for these tone-on-tone cards; they allow me to keep the colored cardstock completely consistent throughout the project! After I had finished adding all of the color, I used the coordinating die from the Love You, Mama set to die cut the super detailed image. I think it’s super cute!

After I had finished coloring and die cutting the main focal point image, I decided to ground it with a Scalloped Floral Tag from the You Are My Favorite release. I die cut the main tag image from some Simon Says Stamp Ice Vellum and added the scalloped topper from some more Lemon Chiffon cardstock, then adhered the pencil die cut momma and baby with some liquid adhesive. I also heat embossed a greeting from Oh, Baby on some more Lemon Chiffon cardstock, stamping it first with more White Pigment Ink, then adding some White Satin Pearl embossing powder. I love the pearlescent white effect that this combination has on colorful cardstock! I used the coordinating dies from Oh, Baby to die cut the sentiment pieces.

For the background, I stamped the Soft Plaid Background on an A2 panel of Lemon Chiffon cardstock using Butter Pawsitively Saturated Ink, creating a soft, tone-on-tone plaid. I trimmed 1/2″ from the bottom of the panel, then tucked a strip of Simon Says Stamp Lemon Glitter cardstock to complete the A2 card front, adding a touch of texture and shimmer to the background. I mounted the die cut pieces to the card front using thin foam adhesive squares, then added a sweet white silk bow and some Butter Pawsitively Dazzling Gems to finish the project off! Such a sweet card, perfect for a baby shower for either gender!

Well, that’s all for my project today. My little boys just had their last day of preschool… they’re kindergarteners now, which doesn’t seem possible to me! Mentally, I am still in 2020. Ha! My big kids finish school in the next couple of weeks, so I will be trying to work amongst with everybody at home… hopefully my cards don’t reflect the chaos that will be swirling around me like a cyclone!! Thanks so much for stopping by today, and have a marvelous day!

Creating a Baby Card with Old Fashioned Christmas from Simon Says Stamp!

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

Hi friends! I have another card to share with you using one of my newest illustrations for Simon Says Stamp: Old Fashioned Christmas featured in the Festive Fun release! When I was illustrating this set, I wanted to make sure to include a big, fluffy bow. I love a good multipurpose stamp, and this large bow works so nicely with lots of different themes. I have seen tons of images lately of watercolored bow backgrounds for wallpaper, and so I thought that I would create my own custom patterned paper using only the pretty bow stamp and some Tombow markers. Let’s get started with the details!

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

I started by stamping the large bow from Old Fashioned Christmas repeatedly on a panel of Arches Hot Press Paper using Hero Arts Contour Ink. After I had stamped the pattern over the entire panel, I used Tombow watercolor markers to paint the bows. I used two different shades of teal, beginning with one layer of a lighter turquoise and plenty of water to allow for distinct contrast between highlights and shading, then adding a second layer of a darker teal to intensify the shadows. When working with watercolor markers like this, I like to scribble the color out onto my glass work surface and pick it up with a damp paintbrush, apply the color to the image, then clean my brush and use that clean brush to move the color. This allows me more control over the intensity of the color and therefore greater control over the contrasting highlights and shadows.

After I had finished watercoloring, I used the older Oh, Baby stamps and coordinating dies to create the perfect sentiment for my bow patterned paper. I stamped the greetings on deep teal cardstock using white pigment ink from Simon Says Stamp, then added some Iridescent Blue embossing powder from Hero Arts to make it stand out a bit more and add some beautiful shimmer. I die cut the sentiment with the coordinating dies. I love how beautifully they stand out on the patterned background with that dark teal cardstock!

For the card base, I trimmed down the bow panel 1/4″ on each side, then mounted it in the center of a full size A7 panel of the same deep teal cardstock that I used for the sentiment, creating a teal border mat. I used an iridescent white frame cut using the A7 Nesting Frame Dies to frame my offset sentiment, then created a custom super pale aqua bow using some May Arts faux silk ribbon and an alcohol marker. Such fun to create custom colored ribbons that perfectly coordinate with the color palette of the card! A few Surf Pawsitively Dazzling Gems was the final touch of sparkle for this sweet baby card.

Well, that’s all for my project today! I love when I can get tons of different and unexpected uses out of a stamp set, and the bow in my new Old Fashioned Christmas set is sure to become a staple on my desk. I want to pair it with some flowers, for sure! Also-FYI: if you haven’t checked out the Simon Says Stamp blog hop celebrating the new Festive Fun release, you’re missing out. Go to the Simon Says Stamp Blog to see both days or click HERE to see my post from yesterday’s Day 1 hop! Thanks so much for stopping by today, and have a marvelous day!

Hero Arts My Monthly Hero April 2024 Release Blog Hop + Giveaway!

Hi friends! I am happy to be hopping along with this month’s My Monthly Hero release for my friends at Hero Arts. You can find the full hop list on the Hero Arts Blog! This month, Hero Arts has released a collection of gorgeous and unique folk-themed products that you can use for so many different occasions!! (Click HERE to see the whole release!) Here’s a peek at this month’s My Monthly Hero Classic Kit:

And here’s a peek at the My Monthly Hero Premium Kit, which contains all of the components of the Classic Kit plus a bunch of marvelous coordinating products:

I have created a trio of projects using lots of different goodies from this release, so let’s get started with the details!

If you have followed my blog at all, you’ll know that I struggle with masculine cards, preferring instead to make basically every project pretty, pink, and covered in flowers. Well, the graphic images in this month’s kit may contain flowers, but when paired with the right color combination, I think these Scandinavian-inspired images create excellent gender-neutral cards! Whenever I am starting a card set, I like to set my color palette first, so I pulled out Mist, Paradise, and Soft Olive ink and lots of different coordinating shades of cardstock and got to work!

For my first project, I paired the new My Monthly Hero Classic Kit with Mist, Paradise, and Soft Olive ink, first die cutting the intricate cover plate die, which only cuts partial outlines so that the entire piece stays intact. I then used blending brushes to blend Mist, Paradise, and Soft Olive with the included layering stencils, centering the images with their die cut outlines. So simple and so fast! I think these stencils would be so fun to use with glitter paste or even some DecoFoil gel and add some shining foil accents. Stencils are such a workhorse for your craft room!

After I had finished blending the pretty folk patterns on the die cut background, I used the standalone dies included in the Classic Kit to die cut some vellum butterflies and floral accents from colored cardstock, layering the floral accents on top of the vellum butterflies to help make them extra special and to help them be even more visible amongst the busy background. I think vellum and butterfly dies were made for each other; the semi-transparent vellum definitely conveys the lightness of fluttering butterflies! For the greeting, I stamped one of the sentiments from the Classic Kit onto some Mist cardstock using Paradise ink, then stamped it again using embossing ink and covered it with the new Iridescent Green Embossing Powder. This embossing powder adds such a beautiful, luminous shimmer to my sentiment and helps it to stand out from the Mist cardstock so well! I matted the sentiment strip on some Paradise cardstock, then popped up the greeting with some foam adhesive and added the butterflies using some tiny dots of liquid adhesive. Such a pretty kit with so many different elements that you can mix & match!

My next card uses the same shades of ink, this time paired with the new Folk Art Stamp and coordinating layering stencil. I first stamped the new Folk Art Stamp onto some white cardstock using embossing ink, then used the Iridescent Green Embossing Powder to emboss the image. Using the Iridescent Green Embossing Powder alone without any colorful ink beneath creates almost a tone-on-tone effect, very subtle, but beautiful when the light catches it just right. After embossing, I used the coordinating Folk Art layering stencil to blend Mist, Paradise, and Soft Olive inks.

After my focal point was finished, I trimmed the panel down and matted it on a slightly larger panel of Pinkfresh Studio Ocean Breeze glitter cardstock, creating a super delicate glittery border around my stenciled background. I adhered it to a full size A2 panel of Kiwi cardstock using liquid adhesive. For the greeting, I kept things super simple, heat embossing a “happy birthday” sentiment onto some more Kiwi cardstock using white embossing powder and matting the greeting with some Paradise cardstock. I popped the sentiment up with some foam adhesive, then added a few Trinity Stamps Imperial Crystal Rhinestone amongst the embossed and stenciled pattern. I love that this pattern is symmetrical, a hallmark of Scandinavian folk art. It makes my symmetrical-loving, right angled design brain happy!

For my last card, I used the adorable new Bird Family Fancy Die set to create a baby card! I stuck with the same color palette, allowing the pretty aquas to be the star of the show on this project, which I think are basically gender-neutral at this point and can be used for both boys and girls. I die cut the momma and baby bird from some iridescent white shimmer cardstock to make them extra special, then die cut the flowers and foliage from the Bird Family Fancy Die set using iridescent white mirror cardstock and some scraps of Kiwi and Paradise cardstock.

For the greeting, I used some of the recently-released A-D Alphabet dies and W-Z Alphabet Dies to create a large “BABY” word die cut. I cut these larger letters from Arctic cardstock, and because these letters are so large, they suit an A7 card beautifully! I trimmed down an A7 panel of Mist cardstock, then used some masking tape to mask the edges of one corner and blended some Paradise ink in just one corner. I also stamped and embossed an appropriate greeting from a stamp set that has sadly been discontinued. I popped all of the different die cut elements up on my blended background, using the bottom blended line as my guide for my die cut letters to keep them nice and straight. Finally, I added some Moonstone rhinestones for extra sparkle. This would be a super easy card to customize for twins or multiples! (those cards are so difficult to find; ask me how I know haha!!)

Well, that’s all for my projects today. Now for some fun giveaway information:

Hero Arts will give away a $50 gift card, drawn from the comments left across the hop. Enter by Sunday, April 7th at 11:59pm Pacific, and the winner will be announced on the Hero Arts blog the following week.

You can see the full hop list on the Hero Arts Blog. Thanks so much for stopping by today, and happy hopping!

Daisies for Babies-Adding Gilded Accents to your 3D Embossed Images!

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

Hi friends! Today, I have some inspiration using the utterly gorgeous Fresh Daisies Embossing Folder + dies. I have become obsessed with adding color to embossing folder images in a variety of ways, including ink blending, alcohol markers, and watercolor, and today I combine a few of those techniques for a two-fer. When I first saw the Fresh Daisies Embossing Folder + dies, I thought that the little baby’s breath flowers and daisies reminded me of a sweet baby card. White daisies are so innocent and clean, so friendly (“Don’t you think that daisies are the friendliest flowers?”), that I thought this embossing folder would make some beautiful and elegant baby cards. Let’s get started with the details!

Both of my cards today feature the Fresh Daisies Embossing Folder. I used two different techniques for these cards, though I kept the color scheme similar for both projects, using Lake Shores Ink for my main color addition.

Oh, Baby + dies

A2 Thin Frames

Lake Shores Ink

My first card pairs the Fresh Daisies Embossing Folder + dies with the Leafy Greens Embossing Folder + dies. I recently added this Leafy Greens folder to my stash with the intention of using it in conjunction with the several different embossed floral dies that are available in the Simon Says Stamp store. The leaves are beautifully delicate and a lovely, graceful shape. I die cut the daisies and the foliage from plain white cardstock, intending to add some alcohol marker coloring to them.

To achieve good results with the die cut embossed flowers, I first die cut the images from my chosen cardstock, then place the die cuts inside the embossing folder in the correct spot for that image, then run it through my die cut machine. If you tried to die cut the embossed image, you would flatten out all of the embossed dimension, so it works best to start with a clean, smooth die cut. Using my OLO Markers, I colored the daisies and foliage die cuts, using BV2.0 and the Zero markers on the “white” daisies, keeping the color mainly on the petals tucked behind the top layer of petals in order to enhance the shadows while still keeping the color a crisp white. I added golden yellow to the daisy centers and colored the leaves a lovely shade of aqua that coordinates nicely with the Lake Shores Ink.

For the background, I used Simon Says Stamp’s Very Very Low Tack Tape and some Post-It Notes to mask off the top and bottom of my white A2 card front. I lightly blended Lake Shores Ink in the center of the card front, then, keeping the masks intact, added the Daisies and Leaves Stencil, which I had lightly spritzed with Pixie Spray to keep the delicate stencil in place while blending. I blended more Lake Shores ink over the top of the stencil to create a very subtle, tone-on-tone pattern in my blended area. I also spritzed the colorful strip with some Hero Arts Iridescent Shimmer Spray. When I removed the masks, I was left with a strip of subtle, but lovely, aqua. Before adding my die cut flowers, I splattered some beautiful, sparkling warm white watercolors to add even more interest to the background.

I arranged the die cut embossed flowers on the card front, adhering them using foam tape. I also stamped a greeting from Oh, Baby onto some white cardstock using Lake Shores Ink, then, keeping the stamps and cardstock in place in my MISTI, stamped again with clear embossing ink and sprinkled some white satin pearl embossing powder over the top. This combination created a beautifully soft color-coordinated sentiment, which I die cut using the coordinating dies. I adhered the sentiment with a double layer of foam tape and added a few gems and some twine for more texture. Once I had everything arranged properly, I “gilded” the flower petals and foliage with the same sparkling white watercolor that I had splattered on the background, adding it only in the highlighted spots to add just a touch of sparkle. I am totally in love with this card; the sparkle is unreal and *so* difficult to capture in a photograph.

My second card also features the Fresh Daisies Embossing Folder and Lake Shores Ink. After embossing my white panel with the full Fresh Daisies Embossing Folder, I blended Lake Shores Ink with a blending brush over the entirety of the embossed panel. I also went back over the raised areas with the ink pad, lightly swiping the panel with the ink pad to add extra color saturation to the raised areas.

Once I’d finished blending and swiping on the panel, I used the same golden white sparkly watercolors to enhance some of the raised embossed images. Leaving the monochromatic color on the background would be fine in itself, but adding the sparkling highlights kicks it up a notch! I also splattered the entire card front with more sparkly watercolors, which I think almost creates a raindrop effect. I added a glittery white frame cut using some white glitter paper and the A2 Thin Frames dies.

For the greeting, I used another pair of die cuts from the Oh, Baby + dies, stamped again using Lake Shores ink + clear embossing ink, and embossed using White Satin Pearl embossing powder. I also lightly blended some more Lake Shores ink on the die cuts to keep them cohesive on the blue background. I popped the greeting up on the card front using foam adhesive, then added some gems and a twine bow. I think the addition of the twine bow helps to enhance the idea that this elegant card is a sweet baby card!

Well, that’s all for my projects today. If you have any iridescent or sparkly watercolors, I would encourage you to try adding some sparkly highlights to your embossed images and backgrounds. It’s super easy, and the effect is absolutely stunning! Thanks so much for stopping by, and have a marvelous day!