Sixth Street Sundries

Emily Midgett

basic box card happy birthday

The Return of Man Card Monday!

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

At some point, long ago, before having my second set of twins (feels like a lifetime ago!), I planned to do a monthly feature called “Man Card Monday.” Then my little boys appeared, and I kind of forgot about it. Whoops! I spend the majority of my crafting time working with beautiful floral stamps and dies, but I think we all find ourselves needing the occasional masculine card! They are not the easiest theme for me, admittedly, but I have a few tricks and techniques that I like to reserve specifically for masculine cards. My philosophy when it comes to masculine cards is simple: keep things graphic and colorful, with lots of texture, some metallic elements, and if possible, some sass! (What guy doesn’t love a sassy, funny card?) Let’s get started with the details!

I began my card by blending Spring, Cadette, Galaxy Pawsitively Saturated inks from Simon Says Stamp on a panel of plain white cardstock, making sure to saturate the cardstock and achieve a smooth blend with these quintissentially masculine colors. Once I had finished blending, I ran the colorful panel through my die cutting machine with the Spun Glass Embossing Folder. I also added some silver watercolor splatters for good measure using Metallic Watercolor. Color and texture: check!

Next, I die cut a chunky sentiment using the Basic Box Card Happy Birthday dies and some holographic foil cardstock, backing the detailed sentiment die cut with a heavyweight vellum. I trimmed some of the Sassy Birthday sentiment cards down to smaller sentiment strips. (What guy doesn’t enjoy being a smart aleck?) Graphic sentiment: check!

Before I assembled the card, I trimmed a 1/4″ strip from one side of the blended, embossed panel and backed it with some more holographic foil cardstock. Metallic accents are always a good idea for masculine cards! I popped up the two sides of the blended panels with Foam Tape, creating some height and texture on the card front, and adhered the sentiment pieces with some more foam tape. To complete the “rule of three” for accent colors, I added some Silver Pearls. They remind me of drops of molten silver! Metallic accents: check!

Well, I hope you enjoyed this first installment of Man Card Monday! Hopefully this series will help you create those elusive masculine cards. I am excited for the challenge outside of my regular, unabashedly feminine cardmaking rotation! Thanks so much for stopping by, and have a marvelous day!

Simon Says Stamp Good Luck Charm Release!

Hi there! My friends over at Simon Says Stamp just released their fabulous new Good Luck Charm collection, and I am super excited to share a project that I made using several of the new goodies! Now, I know it’s usually all florals all the time around here, but I’ll let you in on a little secret: I love making birthday cards almost as much as I love painting flowers. Balloons, confetti, birthday cake… I love it all! The new Good Luck Charm release has several fantastic new birthday-themed products, and I combined a few of them to create this festive project. Let’s get started with the details!

I began by die cutting the Balloon Background die from some shiny holographic blue foil cardstock. To coordinate with the colors in the iridescent foil cardstock, I created a colorful card base by blending Spring Rain, High Dive, and Mint Candy inks. I blended some white pigment ink over the Layered Confetti stencils, then splattered some white and silver gouache to make a festive, colorful background with lots of levels of dimension and texture. I adhered the shiny foil balloon die cut with some liquid adhesive.

For the greeting, I die cut the Basic Box Card Happy Birthday dies three times from some deep teal cardstock, then once from white, iridescent glittery cardstock. I adhered all of the pieces together to create a dimensional die cut. To help make the greeting stand out a bit more, I used the included outline die to cut a piece of vellum and adhered the dimensional die cut greeting to it. I popped up the greeting die cut with some foam adhesive to add lots of dimension and height. I also trimmed one of the preprinted All Things Happy Sentiment Remix panels and added it to the card front with some more foam adhesive.

After I’d added the greeting die cuts, I thought that the card needed a bit more of the shiny holographic foil, so I added a few of the extra balloons from the Balloon Background with some foam tape. Finally, I added a few sequins to add a touch more sparkle.

Well, that’s all for my project today! I’ve been busy creating a few more projects that I’ll share in a few days. In the meantime, I hope you’ll take a peek at the Good Luck Charm release! Thanks so much for reading, and have a marvelous day!