Sixth Street Sundries

Emily Midgett

fadeout ink

Springtime Bunny Shaker 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 have such a sweet card to share with you today featuring some gorgeous new goodies from the new Beautiful Moments release from Simon Says Stamp! (Check out the full Beautiful Moments release HERE!) We’re playing with all things springtime for this month’s release, and I couldn’t resist doing some no-line coloring with this sweet gardening bunny from Special Friend. Simon Says Stamp also released some new embellishment mixes, and my color palette came directly from the new Peach Bellini Embellishment mix. Let’s get started with the details on my card!

To begin, I stamped the bunny from Special Friend with her bouquet of daffodils, as well as some standalone daffodils, using no-line coloring ink. I then used OLO Markers to color the images with pale peach, warm gray, and zingy spring green, adding a pop of sunset yellow to the daffodils. After I had finished coloring all of the images, I went back in with my dark gray fine tipped pen and added the details to the bunny’s nose, whiskers, and eyes, as well as with a gold gel pen to add the centers to the daffodils. I used the super detailed coordinating dies to cut the finished images out.

To create my shaker frame, I first centered one of the new Ribbon Loop Frames over a panel of dark coral A2 cardstock, then die cut the frame, reserving the positive die cut for later and adding a panel of acetate behind the opening on the negative frame piece. I also die cut another of these Ribbon Loop Frames from some white cardstock so that it would pop nicely from the deep coral background. I adhered the white frame to the acetate, adding one of the looped bows to the top. I ran foam adhesive strips around the back of the opening to the window, then filled the shaker with the new Peach Bellini Embellishment and backed it with a piece of pale peachy cardstock.

Once I had assembled the shaker part of the card, I used thin foam adhesive squares to add the bunny and daffodils, adding a die cut greeting from Special Friend that I’d stamped with some metallic rose gold ink. Finally, I nestled a small white silk bow beneath the bunny’s feet, adding the perfect touch of texture and sweetness to this springtime card!

Well, that’s all for my project today! This sweet storybook critter set really spoke to me. It reminds me of Peter Rabbit, the anthology of which I am reading to my little boys at bedtime; it is a timeless illustration style that I just adore! The new Beautiful Moments release has so many gorgeous stamp and die sets (check out the whole release HERE!)-don’t hesitate to check it out. And if you find something is out of stock, don’t forget to sign up to receive an email when it comes back in stock! Thanks so much for stopping by today, and have a marvelous day!

Altenew Build A Flower: Hawaiian Coral Blog Hop+Giveaway!

Hi there! The first of the month always means a new Build A Flower from Altenew, and this month’s flower is absolutely gorgeous- Hawaiian Coral. Not only are the layering stamps available in this set, but these big fluffy blooms are super fun to color like I’ve done here. Altenew features a different bloom each month, and you can subscribe to receive the kit automatically each month (and at a discount!). I’m super excited to be taking part in the blog hop today. You should have arrived here from Amber Rain Davis and your next stop is Jaycee Gaspar. You can also head back to the Altenew Card Blog to start at the beginning.

I love watercoloring the floral images from Altenew, and this beautiful fluffy Hawaiian Coral stamp is the perfect size for some no-line watercolor. I recently acquired some Ph Martin’s liquid watercolors, and I wanted to play with them for my project today. Let’s get started with the details!

I stamped the blooms and foliage on some Altenew watercolor paper using fadeout ink, then did some watercoloring with Ph Martin’s Radiant watercolors. I used several different layers of color to achieve lots of vibrance and dimension.

Once I had finished watercoloring, I used my trusty T-square to add a black frame around the edge to make the flowers the focal point of the card. I stamped a greeting on a strip of white cardstock using black ink. I try to stick to the rule of threes when adding embellishments and pops of accent colors to my cards, like the black frame, so I added a black cardstock mat around the edge of the sentiment strip.

I also added some black gems to the card front to help balance out the bouquet and add the third and final black element to complete my “rule of three.” I love adding these little pops of black to help make a project look more finished.

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

To celebrate this release, Altenew is giving away a $30 gift certificate to 2 lucky winners! Please leave a comment on the Altenew Card Blog by 11/09/2020 for a chance to win. Altenew will also draw a winner to receive a $15 gift certificate from the comments left on each designer’s blog on the blog hop list below. All winners will be announced on the Altenew Winners Page on 10/09/2020.

Thanks so much for stopping by today! Your next stop on the hop is Jaycee Gaspar.

Statement Flowers for Erica and Norine!

Hi there! I have a quick post to share today… Erica (@erica_cacacraft) and Norine (@norinehope) are having a fun hop over on Instagram with some crafty friends to try to get them both over the 10k follower mark! We are celebrating all things Altenew with this hop, and the folks at Altenew have generously donated prizes to further entice people (as though the beautiful projects weren’t enough ;)). I have a clean and bold project using one of my favorite Altenew sets: Statement Flowers. Let’s get started with the details!

For this project, I did some no-line coloring using Ink on 3 Fadeout Ink and my Copic markers. I absolutely love this mauve-y color scheme. I stamped the large floral cluster from Statement Flowers on some Copic-friendly white cardstock with the Fadeout Ink, then colored the image using Copic markers, finally die cutting the image using the coordinating die.

On the white A2 card base, I blended some Pale Mauve and Grape Agate inks in the bottom right corner using blending brushes. I added a delicate die cut Hello cut from some more white cardstock. The soft blending is just enough contrast to help this delicate die cut stand out while still maintaining subtlety. I also stamped a greeting from Sentiment Strips 2 using Plum ink on a thin strip of white cardstock.

I adhered the Statement Flowers die cut to the blended card front using foam adhesive, then added the Hello die cut using liquid adhesive, placing the Sentiment Strip beneath using more foam adhesive. The final touch was some iridescent white gems to add some sparkle.

Well, that’s all for this post! The giveaways from Altenew and Jennifer McGuire are happening over on Instagram, so be sure to head over to my Instagram to find the hop list if you haven’t found it already! Thanks so much for stopping by today, and have a marvelous weekend!

Giant Blooms and a New Exploring with Emily Video!

Hi there! Today, I’m sharing the latest installment of the Exploring with Emily series with Ellen Hutson. This month, I am working with the new Hero Hues Reactive Inks. These inks debuted during the Hero Arts 45th Anniversary catalog release, and they are absolutely fantastic. They blend beautifully, and in the video I show how easily and perfectly they work as watercolors. You can watch it below or here on the Ellen Hutson YouTube channel:

The stamp used in the video is from a new-to-me stamp company: Colorado Craft Company. They have a beautiful group of Big and Bold stamps that feature some utterly massive blooms: Hydrangea, Peony, and Rose (that I used in the video above). I created two more watercolored projects using the Hydrangea and Peony stamps and my Daniel Smith watercolors.

For my first project, I used the beautiful Get Well Hydrangea stamp, first stamping it with Versafine Onyx ink and heat embossing it with White Satin Pearl embossing powder on some Arches Cold Press watercolor paper. The combination of the black embossing powder and the pearlescent powder creates a pretty pearlescent charcoal!

I wanted to create a light pink, antiqued hydrangea, one with many different highlights and lowlights and variations in color, as real hydrangeas do. I tend to saturate images with color to start, adding layer after layer of color until the light image that I’d envisioned in my head is no more. In order to keep the hydrangea light, I began by saturating the area around the flower with bright blue and turquoise watercolors. I found that the contrast of the vibrant background helped to keep my hand light on the flowers themselves. I tried to add lots of variations of color, keeping the petals on the top the lightest with very diluted color, the petals beneath quite dark with very concentrated color, and adding a few touches of very pale yellow to indicate sunshine hitting the bloom

After I’d finished watercoloring the bloom, I needed to add a sentiment, but didn’t want to cover up too much of my meticulously-watercolored panel. My favorite way to add subtle sentiments is to heat emboss a greeting on a piece of heavyweight vellum, which allows the background to still shine through, though slightly muted. I white embossed the greeting from Get Well Hydrangea on a rectangle of heavyweight vellum, then added tiny dots of adhesive behind the embossing to hide the adhesive and not ruin the overall look of the vellum.

For my second project, I focused on the gorgeous, massive peony, but I wanted to do some no-line watercoloring. I began by stamping the image Arches Cold Press using Ink On 3’s Fadeout Ink and my Misti.

I can never get enough pink peonies, so I watercolored the gorgeous flower using my Daniel Smith watercolors in shades of pink, lavender, adding some shadows of deep purple and highlights of pale yellow, again to add variation where the sunlight would hit the petals.

I used the same idea for the greeting as I did for the previous project; I silver embossed the sentiment from Missing You Peony on a strip of vellum, then hid tiny dots of liquid adhesive on the back of the embossed sentiment strip. An effective way to add a subtle greeting to your detailed card front, no?

Well, that’s all for me today! I hope you’ve enjoyed my first explorations into these beautiful blooms from Colorado Craft Company. They have many darling stamps, including some huge stamps of various sweets that I’m dying to play with. I hope you’ll check them out! Thanks so much for stopping by, and have a marvelous day!