Sixth Street Sundries

Emily Midgett

butterfly ranunculus

Monochromatic Flowers with the OLO Marker Colors of the Month!

Good morning, friends! I love when my friends at OLO Marker give me an excuse to play with their wonderful markers. They launched a new monthly series earlier this year: Colors of the Month! Each month, they will offer a special bundle of colors that work nicely together, giving you an opportunity to try the colors out and build up your collection. This month’s colors are RV0.1, R5.5, and R5.7. I took this opportunity to do some coloring with the Butterfly Ranunculus stamp set that I illustrated for Simon Says Stamp, building up the different layers of color to create a bright pink bloom with maroon foliage. Let’s get started on the details of my project!

With the OLO Markers, I find that they layer beautifully, allowing for more versatility and greater variety of color with fewer markers. One swipe of the marker lays down a light layer of color, while adding subsequent layers over the top adds more intensity and vibrancy to the colored image. I also used the tip-to-tip method to do some subtle blending of the colors. I put these techniques to use to create these monochromatic blooms!

I began by stamping my Butterfly Ranunculus images onto some Hammermill cardstock using Contour Ink from Hero Arts. This Hammermill+Contour Ink combination is my favorite for doing no-line coloring with the OLO Markers. After I finished stamping the images, I used the Colors of the Month to add lots of vibrant pink and maroon to the images. I used only the R5.5 and R5.7 markers for the leaves, saturating the color on the shadowed areas with multiple layers of color and keeping the highlights as light as possible with only one swipe of the R5.5 marker. Layering the colors in this way helps to maintain the contrast of the shadows vs. highlights, while also allowing me to use a minimal amount of markers!

For the large bloom, I used all three of the markers from the Color of the Month, working the first couple of layers using the tip-to-tip method of coloring, where I touch the tip of the lighter marker to the tip of the darker marker. As I touch the lighter marker to the paper, the darker ink that has been added to the tip slowly fades away, creating a smooth blend, much more subtle than if I had added the darker marker directly to the paper and blended it out with the lighter marker. Again, I kept the highlights as light as possible by swiping my marker over them only once, allowing for as minimal saturation as possible. Once I had added my first layer of color, I went back in with the two darker markers to add darker shadows to the areas tucked behind the top petals. For the really shadowed areas, I put the markers directly to the paper, but for the petals more towards the front, I used the tip-to-tip method to allow for a more subtle blend.

I die cut the finished colored blooms with the coordinating dies, then, to accent the monochromatic colored blooms, I die cut the Privet Branch dies from some chocolate brown glitter cardstock and cut them up so that I could tuck them here and there. This chocolate brown glitter cardstock beautifully accented the greeting, a hot foiled “birthday wishes” using the Posh Birthday Wishes hot foil plate and die from Memory Box and some shiny Espresso Bean foil from Spellbinders.

For the background, I used the absolutely beautiful new-to-me Vintage Labels die set from Honey Bee Stamps. I die cut the largest label from some more Hammermill cardstock (I love the unique shape of these label dies!) and used one of the smaller labels to cut out the center of the die to create the frame shape. For the card front base, I used the stunning Winter Gems cover plate die, also from Honey Bee Stamps. This cover plate isn’t technically a die, as it doesn’t cut anything out; rather it debosses a beautiful pattern into the cardstock, creating a gorgeous and subtle texture that looks divine behind basically anything. I popped up the white frame and colored flowers and glittering foliage die cuts with foam adhesive, then added the foiled greeting with a double layer of foam adhesive to create extra height and allow it to stand out a bit. The final step was to add a few shiny rose gold Espresso jewels!

Well, that’s all for the details on this project. I love that you can create such incredible highlights and dimension with so few OLO markers depending on how many layers of color you add to your project! If you wanted to try the OLO markers, simply click my link HERE! I am so excited to see what next month’s Color of the Month is over at OLO. Thanks so much for stopping by today, and have a marvelous day!

Simon Says Stamp Stamptember Blog Party!

STAMPtember is officially in full swing, and we’re celebrating with a blog party! If you’re new to STAMPtember: September is Simon Says Stamp‘s birthday month, so the entire month is filled with fabulous releases, celebrations, prizes, challenges… good, clean, inky fun (and prizes!) for an entire month!! I am so thrilled to have illustrated two of the sets that were released during yesterday’s introductory release:  Floral Frames and Butterfly Ranunculus. I have a previous blog post with some watercolored projects using these new sets, which you can check out HERE. Today’s post again features the Butterfly Ranunculus set, this time with Copic markers! I have a video that you can watch below or HERE on YouTube.

In my cardmaking, I am all about making things as seamless and coordinated as possible. To that end, the white edge on die cut images drives me a little nuts when I am working with a vibrant, saturated, colorful background. I recently saw Dawn from Wplus9 use a pale blue Copic marker around her images before die cutting, and I thought that it would translate well to other colors, too! The beautiful Shamrock cardstock from Hero Arts is such a stunning shade of green, and it reminded me of beautiful brocade fabrics, with intense emerald silk for the background and brilliant blue embroidery. Monochromatic, but not really monochromatic, if you know what I mean. I just had to channel that inspiration into a card!

I began by stamping all of the images from the Butterfly Ranunculus set using Hero Arts Intens-ified Black ink onto some white, Copic-friendly cardstock. I used G07 Copic marker to color a halo around the edge of the images, making sure to extend far enough that the entire edge would be green when die cut. I then colored the images, using BG49, BG53, BG01, B00, B000 for the flower and T7, BG78, G28, G09 for the foliage.

Because I wanted to keep the flower a very light shade of blue, I colored the petals first with the four lightest shades of aqua, then added touches of BG49 wherever the shadows would be deepest, blending them out with the lighter shades to get a smooth blend. A little goes a long way with the darker shades, so don’t add too much, because it’s basically impossible to remove once you put the ink on the paper!

Once I had my flowers colored and die cut, I cut a Nested Domed Arch from the Shamrock cardstock, running it through my die cut machine once more with the Detail Mandala Plate from Simon Says Stamp. This extra step adds just a touch of subtle interest and texture to the background of my flowers. I adhered the domed arch to an A2 Shamrock card base using foam tape, then arranged the colored flowers, adhering them with lots of foam tape, sometimes in double layers to add extra height. I heat embossed a greeting from Butterfly Ranunculus onto a strip of Shamrock cardstock using silver embossing powder, finally adding a smattering of Mirrored Mint pearls for some shine!

Well, that’s all for my project today. To celebrate the beginning of STAMPtember, we have a scavenger hunt of all kinds of great freebies that you can receive with your order!

Enter code EH5M427Q at checkout to receive the darling Party Like a Puffin stamp set free with your purchase of $30 or more! You can also check out the other Blog Party participants to see what other kinds of fabulous free gifts you can receive in addition to utterly amazing inspiration!

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

Stamptember Has Arrived + New Illustrations!

Hi there! Have you heard? Stamptember has arrived over at Simon Says Stamp, and it promises to be a month of pure fun with tons of exciting releases all month long. If you’re not familiar with Stamptember, it’s Simon Says Stamp’s birthday month, and they celebrate all month long with huge Simon Says Stamp product releases, as well as super fun, limited-edition collaboration stamp sets from the wonderful companies that we know and love! I am super stinking excited that two of my own illustrations have been used for tonight’s release: Floral Frames and Butterfly Ranunculus! I have two projects using these new sets to share with you today, so let’s get started with the details!

My first project features my new Floral Frames illustration. I have always loved combining thin, delicate frames with bold florals, and these images in this set are perfect for highlighting a poignant greeting, of which there are a ton included in the set! I began by stamping the framed anemone image from Floral Frames onto some Fabriano Artistico watercolor paper using Hero Arts Contour Ink. I then used my Sennelier watercolors to add some lovely plum and jade no-line watercoloring. I used a very thin black pen to add the stamens to the center of the anemone after the watercolor had dried.

For the greeting, I stamped one of the sentiments included in the Floral Frames set, again using Hero Arts Contour Ink. I then used some handmade metallic plum watercolor, a very small brush with a sharp point, and a steady hand to watercolor the sentiment and the frame itself. I love how it looks like I hand painted the greeting myself! The shimmer in the metallic plum watercolor is such a lovely complement to the plummy anemone and pink berries.

For the card base, I ran an A2 panel of Hero Arts Plum cardstock through my die cut machine using the Exotic Vines Embossing Folder from Simon Says Stamp. I lightly brushed the Pinkfresh Studio Regal Kiss inkpad over the raised areas to help add even more interest and texture to the background, then used a blending brush to lightly blend around the edges of the embossed panel. I popped up the watercolored die cut using foam adhesive. I thought that the card needed another shiny, metallic element, so I added a few sprigs cut using the Simon Says Stamp Privet Branch die, cut from some coordinating Purple Rain iridescent foil cardstock. I popped on a few gems for one last touch of shine and texture!

My second card features my other illustration released tonight: Butterfly Ranunculus! I adore the graceful movement of the butterfly ranunculus flower, and they come in tons of different shapes and sizes. I normally gravitate more towards pinks and purples, but I thought that for this project I would venture into the warmer area with some brick red, peach, yellow, and copper. I stamped images from Butterfly Ranunculus onto some Fabriano Artistico watercolor paper using Hero Arts Contour Ink, and again used my Sennelier watercolors to add color to the images, keeping things a bit more muted with some buttery yellow, peach, and brick red watercoloring. I included several different sprigs and foliage options with this set, so it makes building a bouquet super fun!

For the background, I ran an A2 panel of Apricot cardstock through my machine using the Simon Says Stamp Alstroemeria Embossing Folder. I thought that the graceful movement of this background suited the movement of the ranunculus flowers beautifully! I splattered some copper metallic watercolors on the embossed background for a little extra interest.

I arranged the bouquet on my embossed card front, adding a few coppery sprigs of the same Privet Branch die, cut from Altenew Brushed Copper cardstock. I adhered the bouquet using both liquid and foam adhesive for lots of dimension, then added a greeting. I tried to included a few multi-purpose-but-still-heartfelt greetings in the Butterfly Ranunculus set, and this is my favorite one! I embossed it onto some vellum using copper embossing powder, then fussy cut it with some sharp scissors and added it to the card front using some tiny dots of adhesive. A few buttery yellow iridescent gems were the final piece to the puzzle.

Well, that’s all for my projects today! I have a few more projects that I’m saving for later this week, but I hope you’ll check out the entire new release HERE. It’s fabulous and chock full of a ton of different products and styles to suit every person! Thanks so much for stopping by today, and Happy Stamptember!