Sixth Street Sundries

Emily Midgett

darling dahlias

Sympathy and Dahlias with Honey Bee Stamps

Hi there! Today, I have a sympathy card for you created with Darling Dahlias, Oval Spotlight Stencils, and With Sympathy stamps and dies. Sympathy cards often are quite difficult to make, not simply because of the subject matter, but also because they must not be too cheerful with color or embellishments. I find that it’s easier to create sympathy cards and have them on hand rather than having to create them as they’re needed.

I began by stamping a small cluster of flowers on watercolor paper using the Darling Dahlias stamp set and some no-line coloring ink. I also used one of the stencils from Oval Spotlight Stencils to lightly pencil an oval around the floral cluster. The oval frame helps to ground the flowers.

I used some Prima watercolors to watercolor the image, using a variety of colors to create an almost marbled background, and taking care to keep the paint within the edges of my penciled oval frame. I used the same colors from within the frame to add some highlights and other colors to the flower, adding interest to the flower to keep it from being too flat.

I trimmed the panel down and mounted it on an A2 panel of coral cardstock. I die cut and heat embossed a sentiment from the With Sympathy stamps and dies on some dark gray cardstock. The deep gray helps the sentiment pop from the muted colors of the flower and oval frame in the background.

Well, that’s all for me today. Thanks so much for stopping by today, and have a marvelous day!

Darling Dahlias+Giveaway!

Hi there! Today is a special-ish day for me… it’s my 35th birthday today! This covid-quarantine-birthday with two babies and two medium-sized kiddos is definitely not how I imagined spending my 35th birthday, but we’re gonna make the best of it grilling out and some yummy homemade apple pie! (My hubby makes it for me with extra thick crust. Yummm.) This has been quite a transformative year for me in many ways, including my newfound interest in drawing and stamp illustration! I am so grateful for all of the opportunities I’ve been lucky enough to have over the last year, not the least of which is illustrating six different stamp sets for Honey Bee Stamps! (I’ll link them all at the bottom of the post in case you want to check them out. 😉 ) Today’s card is using one of my newest sets: Darling Dahlias.

I used both watercolors and Copics to color my card sets from last week, so I thought for today’s card, I would do some pencil coloring. The images in the Darling Dahlias set are nice and large and great for use with colored pencils. Let’s get started with the details!

I began by stamping the blooms and foliage on some emerald green cardstock using white pigment ink. I find that the white pigment ink disappears into the pencil coloring quite seamlessly, so I tend to use that for my no-line pencil coloring on colored cardstock.

I love using Caran D’Ache Luminance colored pencils to add really vibrant pencil coloring to my colored card stock. I colored the images, then used the coordinating Honey Cuts to die cut the finished images out.

I stamped an emerald green background panel using the Farmhouse Check background stamp and some darker green ink, then arranged the Darling Dahlias in a swag and adhered them on the checkered background panel using foam adhesive. I added a greeting using sentiment dies from the new Slimline Blanket Sentiments and some gems for sparkle.

Now, to celebrate my newest sets and my birthday, I thought I’d do a giveaway! I will select three winners to receive one of my stamp sets from Honey Bee Stamps. All you have to do to win is be a blog follower (either via email or WordPress) and leave me a comment telling me whether you love birthday cake or pie better! I’m sorry international friends… with the way international postage is these days, I’m only doing continental US for this giveaway. I will leave the giveaway open until October 6, 2020.

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

Honey Bee Stamps- More Autumn Afternoon Florals!

Good morning! I have three more cards to share with you using my latest stamp sets from Honey Bee Stamps. I’m not going to lie; I am super proud of these sets. I’m so grateful to Melissa from Honey Bee Stamps for her support and giving me the chance to design stamp sets. I hope you’ll indulge me in sharing a few more projects!

I shared this video yesterday showing me watercoloring the new Harvest Blooms background using Karin markers; today’s projects feature the same concept: watercolor the entire 6×6 stamped panel, then cut it into sections to create two cards from one panel! I used Daniel Smith watercolors to create a pretty plum, rose, lavender, and pinky-coral color combination for this card set, so let’s get started with the details!

For this first project, I trimmed a thin rectangular panel from the watercolored Harvest Blooms panel, then backed it with a slightly wider strip of metallic, dark gold cardstock. I then created a tone-on-tone textured panel using the Garden Lattice cover plate die and two pieces of deep plum cardstock. I mounted the floral/gold strip on the textured background, orienting everything to the right hand side of the card front.

Next, I die cut some concentric circles using some more plum cardstock and the Circle Thin Frames dies, adhering it over the watercolored strip using foam adhesive. I die cut a greeting using the Thinking of You Honey Cuts die set. The final touch was to add some sparkling gems.

For my second project, I used the remainder of the watercolored Harvest Blooms panel as the background, pairing it with the new Slimline Sentiments: Blanket dies to allow the background to really shine. I trimmed the watercolored panel down just a tad to add a plum mat. I also used my trimmer to create a very thin pink metallic frame.

I added the greeting from Slimline Sentiments: Blanket cut from some more deep plum cardstock, adhering it to the card front with Honey Bee’s Precision Glue and adding some crystal glaze to the top to add a little textural difference, which helps the sentiment stand out more. The final touch was some more sparkling jewels!

For my final project (for a few days, at least), I wanted to combine the new Darling Dahlias with the very first set that I illustrated: Everything Wonderful. The scale of these two sets works perfectly together, and the slimline card base provides a nicely sized canvas to fit all of these larger blooms!

I started by heat embossing several images from Darling Dahlias and Everything Wonderful onto some watercolor paper using gold embossing powder. I then used my Daniel Smith watercolors in a feminine autumnal palette of rose, deep orange, plum, and dark lavender.

After I’d finished watercoloring, I die cut the images using Darling Dahlias Honey Cuts and Everything Wonderful Honey Cuts. I also die cut the new Slimline Sentiments: Blanket from some white linen cardstock, then added some washi tape around the edges as a mask and stamped the new Farmhouse Check background using some tan ink.

I mounted the blanket die cut on a white linen slimline card base using foam adhesive, then mounted the floral spray on the card front. I created an extra long bouquet by cutting the Everything Wonderful floral spray in half and hiding the cut edges behind the large dahlia die cut. I added a greeting from the new Autumn Buzzword Die and Stamp set, finally finishing the entire project off with some more jewels!

Well, that’s all of my projects for the Honey Bee Stamps Autumn Afternoon release. I hope you’re loving these new sets as much as I do. Thank you all so much for the kind and supportive comments about my newest collaboration sets. It truly means the world to me to read your sweet words! Thanks so much for stopping by today, and have a marvelous day!

Honey Bee Stamps Autumn Afternoon Florals!

Hi there! I am so, so, SO excited to introduce my latest stamp sets for the Honey Bee Stamps Autumn Afternoon release! I have three sets coming out with this release: Darling Dahlias, Sweet Sunflowers, and Harvest Blooms! If I’m being honest, when I started stamping ten years ago, I never in a million years would have thought that I’d design stamps. I am incredibly proud of these designs, so I hope you love them as much as I do! I have three projects to share with you today, so let’s get started.

My first two projects utilize the new Darling Dahlias, Sweet Sunflowers, and Farmhouse Check stamp sets. When using a large 6×6 background stamp, I like to make use of the entire piece by creating two projects. For the Darling Dahlias project, I began by stamping the Farmhouse Check on a panel of white cardstock using black ink. I trimmed it down to an A2 card front, then layered some green and black cardstock at an angle across the center of the card front.

Next, I stamped the Darling Dahlias images on some more white cardstock using Copic-friendly black ink. I colored them using Copic markers, then die cut them using the coordinating Honey Cuts. I added a greeting using some white embossing powder and a glittering “hello” die cut. I added a few Unicorn gems for some more sparkle!

My next project utilizes the leftover Farmhouse Check stamped panel and the Sweet Sunflowers stamp set. I stamped several images from the Sweet Sunflowers in some more Copic-friendly black ink, then colored the images using some pastel yellow Copic markers and emerald green for the foliage. I die cut them using the coordinating Honey Cuts.

I added a black panel to the checked panel, then layered the die cut sunflowers in a pretty swag using foam adhesive. I heat embossed a greeting from Sweet Sunflowers on black cardstock and die cut it with the coordinating Honey Cuts. I added some more gems for some sparkle!

For my last project, I have a super graphic project using my new Harvest Blooms stamp set. This stamp set is super detailed, so I wanted to focus on that by leaving the background black and white and adding some very pale pastel to the background. I stamped Harvest Blooms using Copic-friendly black ink, then colored the background with some mint Copic marker to highlight the detail of the flowers.

Next, I die cut a hexagon frame using the Hexagon Thin Frames dies from some emerald green cardstock. I trimmed the patterned panel down slightly and matted it with a piece of A2 black cardstock.

Finally, I added a greeting from the Slimline Sentiments: Blanket Honey Cuts. I die cut the Best Wishes from black cardstock three times, then adhered them together to create a dimensional die cut sentiment. Super simple and graphic with that clean color scheme!

Well, that’s all for these projects. I have several more projects to share with you over the next few days, so be sure to check back! The new Autumn Afternoon release is now live, and there are SO MANY cute products. I hope you go take a look!! Thanks so much for stopping by, and happy shopping!