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Sixth Street Sundries

Emily Midgett

holbein

Pinkfresh Studio November 2022 Stamp and Die Release Blog Hop + Giveaway!

Hi there! Today, Pinkfresh Studio is releasing their latest round of stamps, dies, hot foil plates, and stencils for the November 2022 Release, and let me tell you, it’s yet another stunner! So many gorgeous new products that all work fluidly with each other or can easily stand alone as individual products! I love that these product suites work so interchangeably with each other. It creates such versatility and gives you really great bang for your buck. I have focused on several new products today, particularly the beautiful new Dreamy Florals Stamps and Dies. So many of these new images this month set my watercolor-loving heart a-flutter with excitement, but I think this one was most exciting of all for me. Let’s get started with the details on my project!

I began by stamping the images from Dreamy Florals onto some Arches Cold Press Watercolor Paper using Hero Arts Contour Ink. I wanted to do some no-line watercoloring with these beautiful florals, so I pulled out my Holbein watercolor palette and added some soft, springy pinks and lavender, finishing the images off with some lovely intense green. These images are a lovely size, not too small to be super fiddly for watercoloring, but not too large that they take a long time to watercolor. As Goldilocks said, they’re just right! I die cut the images with the coordinating one piece die.

For the background, I wanted to utilize one of the super fun and graphic new hot foil plates and coordinating stencils, but at this point I had already put my hot foiling machine away, so I decided to dry emboss the new Modern Design Blocks Hot Foil Plate using my Spellbinders Platinum 6 with the rubber embossing mat that comes with the new Universal Plate System. This dry embossing creates a beautifully subtle pattern that looks great alone or with the coordinating stencils, as I’ve done here! I used the Modern Design Blocks Layering Stencils to very softly blend Soft Lilac, Ballet Slipper, and Coral Reef inks, pulling in all of the colors of my watercolored images without overpowering them. I also splattered some handmade metallic watercolors over the blended background to add a little extra shine!

For the greeting, I used the new Phrase Builder Happy Hot Foil , which coordinates with the previously-released Phrase Builder Happy Dies. I love the clean, unbelievably shiny look that this adds to the card front! I hot foiled the “happy birthday” on some Hammermill cardstock using Champagne foil from Spellbinders, then cut the foiled words out with the coordinating outline dies. To ground the greeting, I die cut a Braided Oval die from some heavyweight vellum, then arranged all of my floral die cuts and foiled die cut greeting around the edge, allowing some pieces to be tucked behind while others were overlapping the oval. Overlapping on the front allowed me a spot to hide my adhesive foam tape!

Well, that’s all for my project today! Now, to celebrate this release, Pinkfresh is hosting some awesome giveaways!

Pinkfresh Studio will be giving away the full release on the Pinkfresh blog & YouTube channel, so be sure to check those out! They’re linked on the Pinkfresh Blog down below. They will also be giving away a total of TEN $25  gift cards along the hop. The winners will be selected from the comments and announced on November 29, 2022 on our GIVEAWAY PAGE. Winners must check that page & claim your prize within 2 weeks.

The full hop list is below! Thanks so much for stopping by today, and happy hopping!

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

Creating a Vintage Color Palette with Neutrals!

Hi there! Today, I’m up on the Pinkfresh Studio YouTube channel with a video using my oldie-but-still-a-goodie Miss Your Smile stamp set, which was one of the very first sets that I illustrated for Pinkfresh Studio! Miss Your Smile may be a bit older, but coloring it gets even more fun with each use, and today I share some tips on how to get more from your watercolors by mixing neutrals with your super bright colors to create a more vintage-y color palette. You can watch the video below or click HERE to watch on YouTube.

In case you can’t watch the video, I’ll do a quick rundown of how I made this project with some still photos. Let’s get started with the details!

I began by heat embossing the large floral image from Miss Your Smile using some metallic peach embossing powder onto a full size slimline card base created from Arches Cold Press watercolor paper. The metallic peach embossing powder is a lovely, soft alternative to the traditional gold or black stamping! Next, I used my Holbein watercolors to do some watercoloring on this huge image. I wanted to create a more muted, vintage color scheme, so I chose some of the brightest shades of fuchsia and hot pink in my watercolor palette and mixed them with a deep, plummy chocolate brown. Mixing the bright colors with the very dark neutral brown helped to tone down the colors without making them lose their vibrancy.

Once I had finished watercoloring, I felt like the top corner was a bit too open and starkly white to match the soft, muted color palette of the flowers, so I very lightly blended some Soft Lilac ink in the corner opposite the flowers, muting the cool lilac by lightly blending some Warm Buff ink over the top of it. Pairing the two unlikely ink shades is such a fun way to create a wider color palette using the inks and watercolors that you already have!

Once I had finished my card base, I die cut a beautiful Ornate Circle die cut from some coordinating metallic peach foil cardstock. I created a greeting by simultaneously die cutting both pieces of the Lots of Love die set from some coordinating deep plum cardstock. I made sure to keep the interiors of the letters safe (such as on the “o” and “e”), then adhered them in the center of the die cut. I love how the negative space in the greeting still allows you to see the watercoloring without feeling clunky or overbearing on the watercolored panel! The final touch was to add a few Sparkling Champagne pearls to finish it off.

Well, that’s all for my project today! I hope that you enjoyed that project. I encourage you to try mixing in some neutrals to your bright watercolors or ink blending… it’s such fun to see how the colors can be manipulated to create totally new color palettes from the colors that you already have! Thanks so much for stopping by today, and have a marvelous day!

Pretty in Pink for the Flower Challenge!

Hi there! I am excited to be a guest for The Flower Challenge this month! I was so honored when my friend Aileen (@huh_what_pardon on Instagram) asked if I would be a guest for this challenge. This month’s challenge theme is Use a Shape. I love flowers, we all know that, and so I was excited to have an excuse to play with one of the stamp sets I’ve illustrated for Pinkfresh Studio: Best of Everything. I did some loose watercoloring for today’s challenge project, so let’s get started with the details.

I began by heat embossing my intricate floral image from Best of Everything onto some Arches Hot Press watercolor paper using white pearl embossing powder. I then taped it down to my watercolor board using washi tape and watercolored it using my “tie dye” method of watercoloring with Holbein watercolors. Essentially, I begin by getting my entire watercolor panel wet with clean water, then dropping in very diluted (less pigment, more water) color all over the background, not caring whether the color lands on leaves (which should be green) or flowers, basically just allowing the colors to bleed into each other and create an interesting base layer.

After my tie-dye layer had dried, I went back with the same watercolors that I used for the base layer, this time more concentrated (more pigment, less water) to add depth and shadows to the individual flowers. The base layer helps to add a bit of variation on the individual flower petals and leaves by allowing multiple colors to shine through on the lighter highlighted areas. Once it had dried completely, I trimmed it down and mounted the watercolored panel on a vivid pink card base.

For the “Add A Shape” component of the challenge, I die cut a Blanket Stitched Oval die from Pinkfresh Studio, cut from some heavyweight vellum. I also die cut a Happy Birthday greeting from an older, retired die set (whoops!). I die cut the sentiment twice from the same vivid pink cardstock, then layered them together to create a sturdier, more dimensional die cut. I adhered the sentiment die cuts to the vellum oval, then popped them up with clear dimensional adhesive. Vellum can be tricky to work with, but small pieces of the clear dimensional tape are fairly well hidden behind the sentiment die cut! A few sparkling gems from Pinkfresh Studio helped to finish the project off and add some sparkle.

Well, that’s all for my project today! I hope you’ll check out The Flower Challenge blog to see how you can enter your own project for this month’s challenge: Add A Shape. Thanks so much for stopping by today, and have a marvelous day!

Colorado Craft Company October 3rd Blog Hop + Giveaway!

Hi there! Today, I’m hopping along with my friends at Colorado Craft Company to help celebrate their October 3rd Release! It’s full of Halloween-y fun, both spooky and whimsical. You should have arrived here from Daniel West, and your next stop is Kassi Hulet. You can check out the entire hop list at the Colorado Craft Company blog! I have a cheeky, vibrant project for you today, so let’s get started with the details!

I have had a long love affair with the Big and Bold line from Colorado Craft Company, the obsession for which started with their spectacular floral designs. (Me and flowers, big shocker-right?) But their Big and Bold stamp line has way more than just flowers! This month, they added the Big and Bold-Witch’s Broom to their lineup, and the cheeky sentiments are just so darn fun! Some people are all about Halloween, and it can be hard for me to get too excited about blood and guts and being terrified (sorry, not sorry), but I can definitely get behind some snarky, clever sentiments!

I wanted to create a magical, vibrant night’s sky behind the Big and Bold-Witch’s Broom. Aurora Borealis-esque, but a bit more magical and almost unnatural. I began by heat embossing the main image from Big and Bold-Witch’s Broom using some brass embossing powder onto a panel of Arches Cold Press watercolor paper. I then taped the panel down to my watercolor board and used my Holbein watercolors to create this vibrant night sky behind it! The trick to creating this vibrant celestial sky is to lay down your colorful areas first, using lots of pigment and lots of water, then allowing it to dry completely before coming back in with intense black watercolor. I used lots of water and pigment to allow the black to move around fluidly, trying to keep things organic but still allow the magical vibrant colors to shine through. Isn’t watercolor such an incredibly versatile medium? I allowed the watercolor to dry completely (so that the next layer wouldn’t bleed), then covered my watercolored broom with Post-It notes and splattered some metallic “stars” in the sky.

I used the same Brass embossing powder to emboss the super cheeky sentiment from Big and Bold-Witch’s Broom onto a strip of black cardstock. I trimmed it down, then removed my now-dry watercolored panel from my watercolor board and trimmed it down a bit, as well. I mounted the watercolored panel to a black, A2 card front using foam adhesive, then added the sentiment over the top with more foam adhesive for lots of dimension. I absolutely love how vibrant and unique this non-traditional Halloween card came out!

To celebrate this latest release, Colorado Craft Company is giving away one of each of their new stamp sets to one commenter along the hop! To be entered to win, simply leave a comment at each stop on the hop, both on the blogs and on Instagram for maximum chances. Colorado Craft Company will select winners on Wednesday, October 6th, and announce them on the Colorado Craft Company blog on October 7, 2021.

Well, that’s all for my project today! Check out the Colorado Craft Company blog for all of the hop participants. Your next stop is Kassi Hulet. Thanks so much for stopping by today, and happy hopping!