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Sixth Street Sundries

Emily Midgett

holiday card

PTI blog hop for Dawn McVey

Good morning! So, I’ve had a very long obsession with Papertrey Ink stamps. It honestly was the second company from which I purchased any stamps, and after I received my first order, I was absolutely hooked. The super high quality stamps, the coordinating ink and card stock…. I was smitten. Though I don’t have as much time to play with my PTI products as I used to (hasn’t stopped me from purchasing, ahem), I still follow along with each release and glean SO much inspiration from their crazy talented designers. One of those designers, Dawn McVey, has been having a series of very serious health troubles for the last few years, and finally was able to receive a small intestine transplant that will hopefully give her some relief, at long last! (To read all of her story and/or to donate money to her recovery, click here.) To celebrate this auspicious occasion, the cardmakers who adore Dawn’s style and trendy products from Papertrey Ink are taking part in a blog hop using Dawn’s products!

Dawn is known for her florals and use of color, as well as the vintage flair that she adds to all of her projects and products. I personally love her holiday sets; she has so many, and they are all so unique and so lovely. For my project for today’s blog hop, I chose to work with Deck the Halls. I die cut and stamped the wreath and bow from PTI’s white card stock (the only white card stock I use. So sturdy and economical!), then stamped it with Tropical Teal and Pure Poppy inks.

I have had this card in my head for awhile, since the Garden Gate Make It Market kit came out. I die cut the gate from plain white card stock and added the sentiment from Deck the Halls in black ink down in the corner. For the background, I blended some Spring Rain ink at the top of the card base, gradually tapering it off down towards the bottom of the card. I used a snowfall stencil to add some snowflakes with pearlescent embossing paste. I adhered the gate with the wreath to the card front using dimensional adhesive.

Well, that’s all for me today! I am so happy for Dawn, even though she has a long road to recovery…. hopefully this transplant will be the answer for which she’s been searching for so long! Sending big hugs and lots of healing thoughts to you!

Jump Start the Holidays with Hero Arts!

Good morning! Today, the team at A Blog Named Hero are participating in a wonderful blog hop celebrating the crafty comeback of Lea Lawson. If you don’t know Lea’s story, click here. We are so excited to join Hero Arts in celebrating her return to the crafty world! The entire A Blog Named Hero team is here to provide you with some inspiration to help jump start your holiday crafting! You should have arrived here from Donna’s blog and your next stop is Kelly’s blog.

There’s something about a pretty bird surrounded by snowflakes and pine boughs that screams winter to me. To create this wintry project, I started by blending Hero Arts Stonewash, Pool, and Soft Pool ink on an A2 panel. I then stamped snowflakes from an older mini set by Lia Griffith using white pigment ink and blended some more white pigment ink around the edge of the panel to really give it a frosty look. I also added a few dots here and there with my white gel pen.

After I had created the background panel, I began stamping the focal point of the card. I stamped the beautiful cardinal (female cardinals are brown, which is a cousin of gray, just go with it haha!) from Color Layering Cardinal using Shades of Gray cubes and the pine boughs were stamped using both Antiqua and Emerald Green inks. I fussy cut them all, adding in a few loose pine boughs. I adhered the main branch and cardinal with dimensional adhesive, then added in some loose boughs using regular adhesive to add lots of dimension.

To create the greeting, I die cut the peace from the Peace Stamp ‘n Cut using silver foil, then stamped the rest of the greeting onto some thin strips of card stock and mounted them with foam tape. The last step was to add a few sequins from my stash.

We will be giving away a $25 gift certificate, randomly chosen from all of the comments left at every stop along the blog hop. To enter, leave a comment on any of the blogs by Friday, November 10th at 11:59pst, and the winner will be announced on Lea Lawson’s blog on Sunday, November 12th.

Have fun, and good luck! 🙂

World Cardmaking Day!

Hi again! I hope you all are enjoying the festivities for World Cardmaking Day! To see my collaboration project with Honey Bee Stamps and Chibitronics, click here. 

One of my absolute most favorite companies, Concord and 9th, is hosting a celebration for World Cardmaking Day, as well! To enter, you just have to post a Concord and 9th project on social media using the #C9WCMD. Here’s my project:
I’m starting to get a little anxious that I have so few holiday cards completed… like truly, it gives me anxiety lol. I have a long list of people to whom I send holiday cards, and for some reason, I haven’t been in the holiday cardmaking spirit yet. I usually start listening to my holiday Pandora station in August to get myself ready for it… maybe it has something to do with the limited snatches of time I get to work in my office. Anyway, I’m trying to build up my stash. I love the fonts in the Concord and 9th word dies… I’m a sucker for a beautiful font. The Season of Cheer stamps and dies immediately called to me. I started by stamping the pine boughs in an ombre color scheme using the lightest three of the Sea Shore inks from Altenew and my MISTI.

I wanted my sentiment to pop on those pretty greens, so I die cut the greeting from some cranberry red card stock and adhere dit to the card front, then covered it with Icicle Stickles. Finally, I added a few of the greenery sprigs and berries (included in the Season of Cheer dies) and covered them with Stickles, as well.

That’s it! Simple, easily mailed… that’s like the biggest challenge of my Christmas cardmaking. “How can I make this flat enough to be mailed without extra postage?” Ha!

I hope you’ve had some fun today on World Cardmaking Day! Have a fabulous weekend!

Christmas In July!

Good morning! Christmas in July has been eeeeeeverywhere lately. I really need to start working on holiday cards, but we’ve been so busy that it hasn’t even crossed my mind until I saw the Christmas in July sale from Ellen Hutson and thought maybe I should take a look at the (many) holiday stamp sets I purchased during the after Christmas sales last year haha! I had forgotten about this absolutely gorgeous ornament set from Birch Press Designs, and I knew that I needed to make a card with it to celebrate Christmas in July!

I started by die cutting the pretty Classic Ornament set from plain white card stock, then heat embossed the pretty decorative ornament stamps from the coordinating Beaded Ornament stamp set using silver embossing powder. I then used my foam blending tools to blend Caribbean Sky, Puffy Heart, and Lavender Fields ink on the edges of the ornaments. (For some reason, my holiday cards before October always are in pastel shades. My brain can’t seem to leave summer behind until then!)

I then cut the beautiful Winter Floral cover plate die from Papertrey Ink using some hunter green card stock. I trimmed off the solid edge and smaller floral cluster, leaving just the larger floral cluster intact. I arranged the ornaments beneath the floral cluster to create the illusion that they were hanging on the branches of a Christmas tree, then blended the same ink colors (Caribbean Sky, Puffy Heart, and Lavender Fields) lightly on the corner of the card base. I was trying to give the impression of lights in the Christmas tree bouncing off of the shimmery glass ornaments… I hope that came across!

For the greeting, I used the lovely Believe die from Ellen Hutson’s holiday release last year. I die cut it first from some pink glitter paper, then twice more from regular white card stock and adhered them all together to create a dimensional die cut. The final step was to add some sequins here and there and under the foliage of the Christmas tree branches to add some sparkle.

I hope you enjoyed this project! I have far too many holiday stamp sets that have been untouched… I think I should try to set a goal of one holiday card a week for awhile. What do you think? Have you started on your holiday cards yet?

Hope you have a marvelous day, friends!