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Sixth Street Sundries

Emily Midgett

holiday card

A Blog Named Hero: Winter Holiday!

Good morning! Today marks the start of a new challenge with A Blog Named Hero. This month, we are collaborating with Simon Says Stamp to help celebrate their fabulous Die-cember release! The theme is:

I was lucky enough to get to play with the Sensational Snowflakes die from Simon Says Stamp, and combined with Hero Arts holiday sentiments… it’s like they were MFEO (made for each other. Sleepless in Seattle, anyone?) Instead of keeping the snowflakes in their pretty swirly pattern like the die is intended to be… I decided to use the individual snowflakes to create a wintry background.

I started by taking a panel of A2 card stock and using Distress Oxide inks in Cracked Pistachio, Peacock Feathers, Salty Ocean, and Faded Jeans to blend an ombre background. (I cannot get over how beautifully smooth the Oxide inks blend. Incredible.) I die cut the snowflakes from Sensational Snowflakes several times from plain white card stock, then placed them randomly (but still somewhat strategically… somehow.) all over my blended panel.

Next, I used an older Hero Arts Stamp & Cut set to die cut the silver glitter Holidays, then stamp the “happy happy” on a strip of white card stock using Salty Ocean ink. I adhered the Holidays die cut with liquid adhesive and added the sentiment strip with dimensional foam adhesive.

To add a bit more detail, I used a white gel pen to add some little white dots, as well as adding some of the Hero Arts Winter Sequin Mix sporadically across the card front.

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Simon Says Stamp
Ellen Hutson
Hero Arts
Well, that’s all for me today! I hope you’ve enjoyed this project and will participate in the challenge! All you have to do is create a Hero Arts Winter Holiday project (hopefully using some Simon Says Stamp goodies!) and link it up to our blog post to be eligible to win a prize from our sponsor for the month: Simon Says Stamp! (Be sure to read all of the rules for the contest….we wouldn’t want anyone to be left out for not following the guidelines!) Thanks so much for stopping by, and have a marvelous day!

Holiday Card Hustle, Day 3

Good morning! I hope you’re having a marvelous weekend. We had a really lovely, quiet day yesterday…. with the kids being in school this year, I’ve come to appreciate the days when we have nowhere to be and nothing planned, because we can just laze around the house and not have to live at the mercy of the clock. (well, mostly… bedtime is still a pretty strict affair around here haha!) Today’s installment of the Holiday Card Hustle (click to see the projects from day 1 and day 2)  is fairly simple and straightforward. With only a few steps, you can easily mass-produce this layout.

I started by cutting an A7 panel of wine colored card stock, then trimmed my horizontally-oriented photo down to 3.75″x4.75″. I added a strip of gold glitter paper along the bottom edge of the photo, then turned my attention to the bottom panel. For this panel, I wanted to create a rustic patterned paper using the Concord and 9th Plaid Background stamp (C9|SSS|EH). I started with a panel of linen card stock from Papertrey Ink and stamped the Plaid Background using black ink. I found that the texture from the linen card stock created even more texture on this lovely buffalo plaid stamp, which was perfectly rustic to go with the rustic scenery in our photo.

I trimmed down the plaid panel so that it would fit nicely on my A7 base with my photo and glitter strip. To add my sentiment, I used my MISTI (SSS|EH) to double stamp and emboss this beautiful calligraphic Merry Christmas stamp from Simon Says Stamp using Versafine ink. Double stamping and embossing it really makes the black of the sentiment stand out from the black plaid background, and the embossing adds just a touch of textural difference. I mounted everything to the wine colored panel and stamped my custom made signature stamp on the back. Easy peasy, especially if you get an assembly line going with your MISTI!

Well, that’s all for me today! I will be back tomorrow with some more holiday photo card inspiration. Have a wonderful Sunday!

Holiday Card Hustle!!

Good morning! Today marks the start of something new that I’m trying this year. I’m going to call it the Holiday Card Hustle. Every year since my husband and I were married 8.5 years ago, I have made our Christmas cards, and since our kiddos were born, we have taken beautiful family photos each fall in anticipation of using them as our Christmas card… but I can’t ever seem to let go of the idea that I should be making our Christmas cards. I have all of these supplies, so I feel almost guilty if I don’t use them to make our Christmas cards. The last couple of years have seen a Christmas card with one of our family photos tucked inside, but this year, I decided to switch it up a little and incorporate our family photo into the handmade holiday cards! Over the next several days, I will be posting inspiration melding the two concepts. I hope you’ll enjoy it and be inspired to create your own hybrid handmade photo cards!

For today’s card, I’m using one of our photos from our photo shoot last year (our kiddos were so tiny and young!! waaahhhh!) I wanted to use several different layouts and poses in this series to show you have easy this can be. My first tip is to create 5×7 cards. Photos come standard in 4×6 size, but I found that if you’re trying to fit that 4×6 photo onto an A2 card, you a) have to cut some of your lovely photo off and b) have very little room to add your handmade embellishments. The postage cost for A2 and A7 envelopes is the same, so it doesn’t cost any extra to upgrade your card size!! As long as you are less than 1/4″ thick, your card should mail nicely without any extra postage. Here is a handy reference guide from the US Postal Service.

To start, I die cut a frame from Papertrey Ink’s Mix and Mat Berry Boughs die from some Kraft card stock. I also die cut a solid version of the frame using my photo, then adhered the frame to the photo. I like to keep my color scheme coordinated with my photo, so I chose to focus on the neutrals and greens found in the picture. (It helps when your photo outfits are carefully… perhaps obsessively…. coordinated haha!)

After I had framed my photo, I cut a 5×7 panel of Hero Arts’s Woodgrain card stock (HA|EH). The texture of this card stock is just lovely… I want to buy a ream of it haha! You could also use woodgrain patterned paper for a similar, more cost-effective look. I wanted a subtle, somewhat textured background that would coordinate nicely with the woodland scene in the photograph.

Next, I decided to add some more foliage by adding sprigs of Papertrey Ink’s Beautiful Berries Winter stamp set. In keeping with the neutrals and green theme, I stamped the foliage in Willow and Green Apple inks from Simon Says Stamp, and just the second step of the berries using Fog ink. Using just the second step of the two-step berry stamp creates white berries!

I had a custom stamp created for my holiday cards this year from Bossy Joscie, which I stamped on the back of this flat postcard, so I wanted to keep the greeting on the front simple. I decided to use a simple die cut “joy” from My Favorite Things (EH|SSS) cut from some champagne shimmer card stock and mounted in the corner of my kraft frame. The final touch was a twine bow amongst the berries and branches!

I hope you enjoyed this first photo holiday card hybrid! I have lots more ideas to share with you, and I hope my excitement is contagious! Have a great day, and I’ll see you back here tomorrow with some more inspiration!

More Honey Bee Stamps November 2017 Release Projects

Good morning! Today is the final day of sneak peeks for the Honey Bee Stamps Holiday Release! We’ve got cutie little birds, some fabulous new dies, and today I’m focusing my attention on a cheeky (and utterly adorable) new set called Blah Humbunny. Now, I’m normally not a huge fan of punny sentiments, but these are just snarky enough to make them hilarious and awesome. Let’s get started with the details!

To start, I stamped and die cut one of the two bunny images from Blah Humbunny and some accessories using Memento Tuxedo Black ink onto some Copic-friendly white card stock. Next, I colored the die cuts with Copics, using C00, C1, and a touch of C3 here and there, as well as keeping my Colorless Blender handy to really keep that bunny looking  pure, winter white.

This super clean and simple project didn’t need too much extra… just that cute bunny with the little hat, exasperated expression, and cheeky greeting… so I popped him up with dimensional adhesive, then stamped my sentiment from Blah Humbunny on to the card base with Memento Black Tuxedo ink. I did add some Wink of Stella to bunny’s hat and some Nuvo Crystal Glaze to the ribbon on the gift. I also used a C1 Copic to add a bit of “ground” to the card base beneath where bunny was seated so that he wasn’t floating in midair.

Well, that’s all for me today! I hope you’ve enjoyed the release projects this week… Remember, everything will be available for purchase tonight on the Honey Bee website at 11 pm PST (1 AM CST!)! We are going to have a fabulous blog hop for you tomorrow, so stay tuned!

Have a marvelous day, and I’ll see you back here tomorrow!

A Blog Named Hero: CASE A Designer!

Good morning! Happy Monday! Today marks the start of a new challenge over at A Blog Named Hero! This month, we are challenging you to copy a designer! Simply choose a card from the plethora of inspiration that our design team has provided you and use that as your starting point for your own project! Our sponsor this month is Neat and Tangled. I have SO many ideas for pairing Hero Arts and Neat and Tangled products… they work so beautifully together. For my project, I chose to CASE this card from my teammate, Coralynn! I loved her little scene on the bright white background with just pops of bright color.

Here’s my take on it:

I started by die cutting the fabulously clever scroll note from Hero Arts’s Christmas List Stamp ‘n Cut (SSS|EH) from plain white card stock, then added the sentiment from the coordinating stamp set using Memento Black Tuxedo ink. Next, I used C00 and C1 Copic markers to add shading to the scroll so that it would look a bit more dimensional. Next, I stamped the sweet little elf and some accessories from the Elves and Their Shelf (SSS|EH) stamp set using Memento Tuxedo Black, then colored them all with my Copic markers and fussy cut them (I don’t have the dies, so I got up close and personal with those black lines! My Copics bled a little, so I wanted to remove as much as that as possible.)

I adhered the scroll down onto my white A2 card front with liquid adhesive, then used dimensional adhesive to pop up my elf and accessories. I trimmed down the top and bottom of the white card front so that I could leave a strip of red and white striped pattern paper peeking out from the top and the bottom. The final touch was to add some shimmer to the elf’s hat using my Spectrum Noir sparkle pen and add some Glossy Accents to the ball of the snowglobe.

Well, that’s all for me today! Now, it’s your turn! Choose a card from one of our design team’s projects to use as your inspiration, then add your own spin to it and link it up to our blog! Be sure to read all of the rules for the challenge so that, if your entry is chosen, it’s not disqualified. 🙂

Have fun, and good luck!