Sixth Street Sundries

Emily Midgett

build a garden

Altenew 11th Anniversary Blog Hop Day 2 + Giveaway (over $3,600 in Total Prizes)

Hi friends! After a bit of technical difficulty, I am excited to join my friends from Altenew for their 11th Anniversary Blog Hop Celebration! Month after month, Altenew provides us with exquisite products and equally exquisite inspiration to jumpstart your creativity. I was honored to be part of the Altenew Design Team for several years until life got a bit too crazy and I had to step back. I love joining my sweet friends from Altenew occasionally, though, helping to introduce new products and showcasing some of the fun and innovative new designs that Altenew consistently brings to us! For the Altenew 11th Anniversary Hop, Altenew has brought together our favorite companies for a multi-day blog hop that is chock full of inspiration and prizes to celebrate their 11 year milestone! You can find the full hop list over on the Altenew Blog. I have two projects to share with you today using some absolutely stunning goodies, so let’s get started with the details!

*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!*

My projects for today feature the stunning images from an older Build-A-Garden set, called Breezy Petals. I was super inspired by the color palette in the Botanical Brilliance Fresh Dye Ink family, so I used that as my color palette, pulling different colors together to create a cohesive card pair that coordinate but don’t “match.”

My first project mainly uses the stencils from the Breezy Petals product suite, creating an illusion of no-line coloring. I used the gorgeous colors from the Botanical Brilliance Fresh Dye Ink family on some Blush Crafty Necessities Cardstock. This cardstock color is light enough that the ink blending still stands out over the top, but is relatively subtle and gives an almost tone-on-tone vibe. I also used a blending brush to blend the exquisite Blush Rose ink around the edges of the stenciled panel, my favorite from the Blushberry Bliss Fresh Dye Ink family.

Once I had created my background, I die cut a sentiment from some coordinating red cardstock and glitter cardstock (I’m sorry-I can’t remember from which die set this sentiment die comes!), layering the two pieces together with liquid adhesive. To help ground the sentiment and soften the pattern behind it, I trimmed a thick strip of vellum and used my sharp scissors to flag the end. I added a strip of coordinating pearlescent blush cardstock on the end and adhered my sentiment die cut with some foam adhesive to the vellum strip before flipping it over and adding some liquid adhesive behind the solid die cut. This hides the adhesive behind the semi-transparent vellum to keep things neat and tidy! Finally, I added a coordinating blush ribbon bow, tucked beneath the sentiment die cut, for a bit of added texture. Such a pretty and feminine card, I think!

My second card utilizes a similar layout, this time using the coordinating stamp and die set for the Breezy Petals product suite. I stamped the large floral bouquet onto some heavyweight vellum using embossing ink, then used Rose Gold embossing powder to emboss the gorgeously detailed image. I just love the simplicity of the embossing on vellum, but the stamped image is so intricate that it stands on its’ own beautifully! I die cut the embossed image with its’ coordinating sentiment die. On the card base, I blended some more Blush Rose ink on a panel of Blush cardstock, creating a warm, peachy glow behind the embossed vellum panel.

For the greeting, I heat embossed a sentiment from the Breezy Petals stamp set onto some deep red cardstock using the same Rose Gold embossing powder and used the coordinating die and my trimmer to cut them out. I adhered the sentiment pieces to the vellum with foam adhesive, then flipped the die cuts over and added some liquid adhesive behind the solid die cuts before placing them on the center of the blended background. Finally, I added a ruby red bow tucked beneath the sentiment for a bit of extra textural interest!

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

Here’s the full hop list in case you get lost:

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

Happy 11th Anniversary to Altenew! Thanks so much for stopping by today, and happy hopping!

Altenew December 2024 Blog Hop + Giveaway!

Hi friends! I am hopping along with Altenew today to celebrate their December 2024 release! You should have arrived here from Therese, and your next stop is Cathy. You can also start back at the beginning at the Altenew Blog! It is feeling like winter outside today, which is a perfect backdrop for this serene and icy blue card using some of the gorgeous new Fresh Dye Inks and the new Build-A-Garden: Dreamy Dahlias product suite. Let’s get started on the details for my project!

*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!*

To begin, I stamped the bold and beautiful floral image from the new Build-A-Garden: Dreamy Dahlias product suite. This large-scale image creates a breathtakingly detailed and generously-sized floral arrangement, which you can stamp perfectly and easily using the new Stampwheel 2.0! I stamped the image using the lightest shade of blue from the new Tranquility Fresh Dye Ink quartet, then stamped directly over the top again with some sticky embossing ink and covered the entire image with gorgeous Iridescent Blue embossing powder. The combination of the colored ink base layer with the translucent, iridescent embossing powder creates an absolutely magical finished effect. Subtle, but oh so lovely.

After I had heat embossed the entire image, I used the coordinating stencils from the Build-A-Garden: Dreamy Dahlias product suite and the beautiful blues in the Tranquility Fresh Dye Ink quartet to add stenciled details to this lovely monochromatic floral image. Chinoiserie is having a moment right now in home decor, and so I was channeling that blue and white imagery with the tranquil blues on this card! After I had finished stenciling all of the layers, holding my cardstock and stencils down using the sticky mat from the Stampwheel 2.0 to make stenciling super simple and quick, I used the coordinating Add-On Die to cut the intricate floral arrangement out.

To create a simple background, I decided to add a touch of texture to my white card front using the new Terrazzo Press Plate on some plain white cardstock. Now, I am a bit of a hoarder when it comes to my “specialty” cardstock, so when working to create a background whose function is mainly to add a touch of textural interest behind my focal point, I like to use a hack that I learned from the incredibly talented Carissa Wiley. Rather than use a panel of the expensive letterpress cardstock, you can place a panel of “scrap” cardstock (I use inexpensive watercolor paper that I don’t like for watercoloring but works beautifully for this technique!) behind your panel of white or colored cardstock, tape them together using light-tack tape, then use them in your Better Press Letter Press system like you would for a normal press plate. This technique impresses the pattern into your plain cardstock, allowing you to stretch the uses for your Press Plate system even further!

I blended the lightest shade from the Tranquility Fresh Dye Ink quartet around the edges of the textured panel, then mounted my floral die cut with foam adhesive, trimming off any excess that might be hanging over the edges. I also created a sentiment with one of the greetings included with the Build-A-Garden: Dreamy Dahlias product suite, stamping it first with the darkest color from the ink suite and then again with embossing ink, covering it with the same Iridescent Blue embossing powder to create that magical shimmer and shine. I popped up the greeting with some foam adhesive, then added a white bow and some sparkling embellishments for added texture and interest!

Well, that’s all for my project today. Now for some fun giveaway information!

  • $300 in total prizes! To celebrate this release, Altenew is giving away a $100 gift certificate to 1 lucky winner and a $50 gift certificate to 4 winners! Please leave a comment on the Altenew Card Blog and/or each designer’s blog post on the blog hop list below by December 17th for a chance to win. Altenew will draw 5 random winners from the comments left on each stop of this blog hop and announce the winners on the Altenew Winners Page on December 19th, 2024.
  • The winner of the $100 gift certificate will be chosen from comments left on the Altenew blog.

Here’s the full hop list in case you get lost:

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

Thanks so much for stopping by today, and happy hopping!

 Altenew June 2024 Release Blog Hop + Giveaway

Hi friends! I am taking part in Altenew’s June 2024 Release Blog Hop. You should have arrived here from Michelle Short, and your next stop is Svitlana Shayevich. You can find the full hop list at the bottom of this post, or you can go to the Altenew Blog. This month’s new release (check out the full release HERE) is filled with beautiful new florals (of course), fabulous textures and Press Plates, and some truly stunning new Fresh Dye Ink families! I have two sweet and delicate cards to share with you today, so let’s get started with the details!

The new Botanical Brilliance Fresh Dye Ink families are some of my most favorite that have been released so far. The soft blush, buttery yellow, and fresh greens work so perfectly together as well as with other color families. I used all three color families for both of my cards today to create these very soft, ethereal, dreamy cards.

For my first card, I began by heat embossing the exceptionally beautiful and meandering floral arrangement from the new Build-A-Garden: Branching Roses onto a white, A2 card front using some gold pearl embossing powder. I then used the included coordinating layering stencils to blend Peachy Glow, Golden Honeycomb, Strawberry, Dusty Pink, Blush Rose, Pistachio, Misty Sage, and Mossy Meadow Fresh Dye Inks from the new Blushberry Bliss, Sun-Kissed Delights, and Jade Dreams Fresh Dye Ink families. I love these gentle colors, made even more subtle with a light hand while blending. After I had finished blending the images with the stencils, I used a larger blending brush to lightly blend Strawberry and Dusty Pink inks from the Blushberry Bliss ink quartet around the edges of the panel. The resulting panel is so soft and dreamy!

After I had finished creating the panel, I stamped some of the sentiments from the Build-A-Garden: Branching Roses stamp set onto some white cardstock using Raspberry Sunset ink from the Blushberry Bliss ink quartet, then stamped directly over the top with embossing ink, then added some more gold pearl embossing powder to create custom colored embossed sentiments. I fussy cut the larger sentiment with my sharp scissors, then used my trimmer to trim down the sentiment strip. I adhered the sentiment strip to a slightly larger piece of gold pearl cardstock, which coordinated nicely with the pretty gold pearl embossing. I popped up the greeting pieces with some foam adhesive, then added a smattering of Ethereal Stones Rhinestones from Trinity Stamps and a white silk ribbon to truly complete the feminine aesthetic of this card.

For my second project, I continued this airy feminine theme with the Craft-A-Flower: Japanese Anemone and older Rustling Leaves Press Plate and coordinating die. I began by die cutting all of the elements of the new Craft-A-Flower: Japanese Anemone from white cardstock, then used blending brushes to blend Strawberry, Dusty Pink, Pistachio, and Misty Sage inks from the new Blushberry Bliss, Sun-Kissed Delights, and Jade Dreams Fresh Dye Ink families to “color” them. The lovely soft colors of the inks were made even softer with the light ink blending, creating the prettiest pale pink anemones! I also used the Mossy Meadow ink from Jade Dreams to impress the leaf images from the Rustling Leaves Press Plate and die cut them with the coordinating die.

For the background, I wanted to keep the softness of the flowers but still add some minimal texture behind my floral bouquet, so I inked up the Rustic Burlap Press Plate with Strawberry ink and ran it through my Better Press system. The soft pink helps make the textured pattern a bit more visible than simply running the plate through without inking. I arranged the florals on the textured background and adhered them with both liquid and foam adhesive for lots of different textures and heights, then added a letter press greeting from the Rustling Leaves product suite, inked up with darker Green Opal ink from the Jade Dreams ink family to help it stand out amongst the florals. Finally, I added a few shimmering iridescent gems for a bit of sparkle!

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

$300 in total prizes! To celebrate this release, Altenew is giving away a $100 gift certificate to 1 lucky winner and a $50 gift certificate to 4 winners! Please leave a comment on the Altenew Card Blog and/or each designer’s blog post on the blog hop list below by June 12, 2024 for a chance to win. Altenew will draw 5 random winners from the comments left on each stop of this blog hop and announce the winners on the Altenew Winners Page on June 14, 2024.
*The winner of the $100 gift certificate will be chosen from comments left on the Altenew blog. 

Here’s the full hop list:

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

Thanks so much for stopping by, and happy hopping!

Altenew February 2024 Release Blog Hop + Giveaway!

Hi friends! I’m hopping along with Altenew today to share inspiration using their new products from the February 2024 release! You should have arrived here from Therese and your next stop is Svitlana. You can also start back at the beginning at the Altenew Blog. I have two projects to share with you today, so let’s get started with the details!

For my first card, I used the absolutely gorgeous new Build-A-Garden: Blooming Delight to create a vibrant, sunny focal point for my dramatic card. I started by stamping the large floral arrangement onto some watercolor paper using Obsidian pigment ink, then embossing over the top with clear embossing powder. I then began watercoloring the images a sunny, happy yellow using the Artists 24 Pan Watercolors. These watercolors are amongst my favorites in my (rather copious) stash of watercolor mediums; the price makes them super economical, while the quality remains top notch. After I had finished watercoloring, I die cut the image with the coordinating die, then used the brush pen from the Fine Liner Pen set to add black around the die cut edges so that the entire die cut was colored.

For the card front, I die cut the Antique Blossoms die a few times using black glitter cardstock. I wanted to create subtle tone-on-tone texture, so I adhered the delicate, sparkling black glitter die cuts to a black cardstock card front, trimming off the excess from the edges and rotating them along other sides of the card front to create a large, cohesive pattern on the background behind my bright blooms.

After I had popped up the watercolored sentiment on my textured black background, I die cut the “hugs” from the Timeless Sentiments die set, using black glitter paper for the detail layer and vellum for the shadow layer. I also die cut the “sending” from the Build-A-Garden: Blooming Delight coordinating die add-on using the same combination and popped them both up on the card front. I added a few yellow gems for some extra sparkle!

My second card features the new Dynamic Duo: Watercolor Dreams. I began by stenciling the floral images using the Cool Summer Nights Fresh Dye Ink quartet. This layered stencil is a bit whimsical and allows you some freedom on matching up the layers, because there is no outline image that you have to follow! I stamped and stenciled the coordinating stamp set, as well, so that I would have a full bouquet for my card front.

For the background behind my floral bouquet, I lightly blended Dusk ink from the Cool Summer Nights Fresh Dye Ink quartet in the center of a white card front, then splattered some sparkling turquoise metallic watercolor from the Metallic Watercolor 14 Pan set. I arranged the die cut flowers in the center of my blended, splattered panel, adhering them using foam adhesive.

For the greeting, I die cut the Simply Friend die from some Shimmering Shore glitter cardstock, as well as a partial greeting from Slim Sentiments dies using deep teal cardstock. I adhered the glittering “friend” using foam adhesive, accenting the dot over the “i” with a gem and adding a smattering of aqua gems.

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

$300 in total prizes! To celebrate this release, Altenew is giving away a $100 gift certificate to 1 lucky winner and a $50 gift certificate to 4 winners! Please leave a comment on the Altenew Card Blog and/or each designer’s blog post on the blog hop list below by 02/13/2024 for a chance to win. Altenew will draw 5 random winners from the comments left on each stop of this blog hop and announce the winners on the Altenew Winners Page on 02/15/2024.
*The winner of the $100 gift certificate will be chosen from comments left on the Altenew blog. 

Here’s the full hop list:

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

Thanks so much for stopping by today, and happy hopping!

Altenew December 2023 Inks & Marvelous Monthly Series Blog Hop + Giveaway ($300 in Total Prizes!)

Hi friends! Today, Altenew is celebrating their December “super release” with a blog hop! You should have arrived here from Caly, and your next stop is Agnieszka. You can also start back at the beginning at the Altenew Blog. I have four projects to share with you today using the beautiful new Build-A-Garden: Blossoming Freesia and the stunning new Kaleidescope of Colors Fresh Dye Inks! Let’s get started with the details.

I began my first project by stamping the outline image of the beautiful new Build-A-Garden: Blossoming Freesia twice on my A2 card panel using very pale pink ink from the Rose Petal Fresh Dye Ink bundle. I used the layering stencils included with the new Build-A-Garden: Blossoming Freesia with the Rose Petal Fresh Dye Ink bundle, Buttercream, and Lagoon inks to create these lovely, vibrant, cool pink blooms on my card front.

After I had blended all of the images with the layering stencils, I used the included mask stencil to cover my images so that I could do some blending for the background. I placed the mask over the top of the image and blended Icy Water ink in the background, adding some touches of pale pink around the edges of the card front to create an ethereal effect. I also splattered some shimmering pink watercolor from the Metallic watercolor set to add even more ethereal magic to the card front!

For the greeting, I heat embossed a sentiment strip from the Build-A-Garden: Blossoming Freesia set in silver on a strip of white cardstock. I also die cut the included “friend” die from some coordinating blue glitter paper from the Fairy Dust Glitter Cardstock pack, backing it with a die cut vellum bubble layer. I popped up the greeting pieces using foam adhesive, then added a few iridescent gems for sparkle!

My next trio of cards is an homage to some of the absolutely stunning new additions to the Fresh Dye Ink line. The new Kaleidescope of Colors Fresh Dye Inks feature some older color families in the new Fresh Dye Ink formulation, and there are also four new color families to add to your ink collection! I love ink blending with embossing folders; I think it is such a simple way to make a huge impact with your card front, so I pulled out lots of different holiday products and some beautiful inks to create a trio of simple Christmas cards.

My first project is an homage to the new Glacier Caves Fresh Dye Ink bundle. I started this icy project by ink blending the beautiful blues in this Fresh Dye Ink family around the edges of a white A2 cardstock panel, then running the blended panel through my die cut machine using the Starry Patterns embossing folder. To enhance the embossed pattern on the card front, I swiped the Cloud White pigment ink over the raised areas, allowing the snowflakes to stand out a bit from the colorful blue background, also adding some iridescent white shimmer watercolor splatters. I stamped the greeting from the Joyful Greetings stamps and die set using the darkest blue from the Glacier Caves Fresh Dye Ink bundle, heat embossing over the top of it with some pearlescent white embossing powder. I added a few glittering snowflakes cut using the Layered Snowflakes 2 die set from Dazzling Diamond glitter paper. A few sparkling white gems finished it off!

My second card features the brand new Dried Petals Fresh Dye Ink bundle, one of the four new color families in this release. I blended a beautiful pink ombré down the front of my A2 card front using the Dried Petals Fresh Dye Ink bundle and ran the panel through my die cutting machine using the Poinsettia Cluster embossing folder. These large blooms make such a statement on your card front with so little extra work required! I ran my Rose Gold pigment ink pad over the top of the raised areas, highlighting them and adding some luxurious metallic accents, then splattered some rose gold metallic watercolor over the entire panel. I die cut a greeting from the Christmas Season die set using Rose Gold metallic cardstock, which I adhered to a strip of vellum. I folded one edge of the vellum behind the card panel and added some super strong double sided adhesive tape, then added tiny dots of liquid adhesive behind the solid die cuts. Some shiny pink gems finished it off!

Finally, I used the Sugarplums Fresh Dye Ink bundle to create this unique diagonal blended background. Blending the colors on the diagonal reminds me of a purple Tiger’s Eye gemstone! After blending the Sugarplums inks on my A2 card panel, I ran the piece through my die cutting machine using the Festive Greenery embossing folder. I swiped the raised areas with my Antique Gold pigment ink pad and splattered the entire piece with more metallic gold watercolors. I heat embossed some images from Winter Florals onto a piece of heavyweight vellum using gold embossing powder, then snipped the individual berry clusters off of the long branch to create a custom arrangement. I die cut a deep plum greeting from the Christmas Season die set and arranged all of my die cuts on my blended and embossed background. Finally, I added a few coordinating sparkling gems!

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

$300 in total prizes! To celebrate this release, Altenew is giving away a $100 gift certificate to 1 lucky winner and a $50 gift certificate to 4 winners! Please leave a comment on the Altenew Card Blog and/or each designer’s blog post on the blog hop list below by 12/19/2023 for a chance to win. Altenew will draw 5 random winners from the comments left on each stop of this blog hop and announce the winners on the Altenew Winners Page on 12/21/2023.
*The winner of the $100 gift certificate will be chosen from comments left on the Altenew blog. 

Here’s the full hop list in case you get lost:

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

Thanks so much for stopping by today, and happy hopping!