Sixth Street Sundries

Emily Midgett

masculine

Man Card Monday April 2024: Do You Play Pickleball?

This post was sponsored by Simon Says Stamp. Thanks, Simon!

Hi friends! I’m back for the April edition of Man Card Monday, a bit delayed because of one of my 4 year old twin boys fracturing his tibia. (On his birthday, no less. Sad face!) It made life a little hectic, to say the least, so my Man Card Monday post featuring the new Pickleball set from the Be Bold release is a bit later than I planned. I’ve never played pickleball myself, but I know that it’s hugely popular and it looks like tons of fun! Kind of like table tennis on steroids, if I understand it correctly? I thought the set would make a perfect project (or two) for Man Card Monday with some bold colors and subtle plaid background. Let’s get started with the details!

The new Pickleball set features some silhouettes of the players in different positions, a net, some paddles, and, of course, a ball, all accompanied by some clever and creative sentiments! I guess I had tennis in my mind’s eye when I was creating these cards, and so thought that a crisp, almost neon green, black, and white color palette would suit these bold images, and I’m super pleased with the results. I always equate tennis courts with being “preppy” and so channeled that imagery by pairing these images with the Soft Plaid Background and the Rainbow Splash Lime and Grass inks for some vivid and bold color.

I started my first card by stamping the silhouette images of the players onto some Hammermill white cardstock using black pigment ink and embossing them with clear embossing powder. I think that clear embossing the black silhouettes makes them super crisp and bold! I also heat embossed the net on some vellum so that the die cut would almost “float” like a real net would!

For the background, I stamped the Soft Plaid Background on some more white cardstock, inking up only the center of the stamp and dabbing the edges of the inked up area using my microfiber cloth so that they would fade smoothly away. After stamping the image with the Rainbow Splash Grass ink, I used a blending brush to blend a spotlight area with Rainbow Splash Lime ink in the center of the plaid panel. This spotlight helps to ground my scene so that the players were not just floating in midair, ha! I trimmed the panel down, taking 1/4″ off of each side, and mounted it in the center of a white A2 panel of cardstock.

I popped up the embossed images using foam adhesive, arranging the solid die cuts to overlap the vellum net and hiding the foam squares behind the solid die cuts to keep my vellum net nice and clean! I also added some coordinating lime green alcohol marker coloring to the paddles to help keep the color palette cohesive. I embossed and die cut a greeting, then tucked it next to one of my players’ feet with some foam squares.

For the second card, I wanted to focus on the larger scale “dink” sentiment and the accessories included in the Pickleball set. I started by stamping the sentiments and ball with more black pigment ink and embossing them with clear embossing powder. Next, I stamped the paddles, first stamping them completely with Lime ink, then doing some partial stamping around the edges of the paddles with Grass ink, dabbing the center of the stamp with my microfiber cloth to create some color gradient. I used a black fineliner pen on the wrapped handles, so that the images coordinated with the black outline for the ball. (I don’t love mixing solid stamps with outline stamps on the same project, so that black fineliner pen was just the ticket!)

For the background, I stamped the Soft Plaid Background on some more white cardstock using Lime ink, then trimmed the panel down 1/4″ on all sides and blended more Lime ink around the edges, creating a vivid green halo. I centered the plaid panel on an A2 panel of green glitter cardstock, then added my die cut pickleball elements using more foam squares for lots of dimension!

Well, that’s all for this month’s edition of Man Card Monday (on Tuesday, whoops!). Be sure to check back here later this week for tons and tons of new inspiration using the upcoming Simon Says Stamp release…. it’s a really good one!

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

Hero Arts My Monthly Hero April 2024 Release Blog Hop + Giveaway!

Hi friends! I am happy to be hopping along with this month’s My Monthly Hero release for my friends at Hero Arts. You can find the full hop list on the Hero Arts Blog! This month, Hero Arts has released a collection of gorgeous and unique folk-themed products that you can use for so many different occasions!! (Click HERE to see the whole release!) Here’s a peek at this month’s My Monthly Hero Classic Kit:

And here’s a peek at the My Monthly Hero Premium Kit, which contains all of the components of the Classic Kit plus a bunch of marvelous coordinating products:

I have created a trio of projects using lots of different goodies from this release, so let’s get started with the details!

If you have followed my blog at all, you’ll know that I struggle with masculine cards, preferring instead to make basically every project pretty, pink, and covered in flowers. Well, the graphic images in this month’s kit may contain flowers, but when paired with the right color combination, I think these Scandinavian-inspired images create excellent gender-neutral cards! Whenever I am starting a card set, I like to set my color palette first, so I pulled out Mist, Paradise, and Soft Olive ink and lots of different coordinating shades of cardstock and got to work!

For my first project, I paired the new My Monthly Hero Classic Kit with Mist, Paradise, and Soft Olive ink, first die cutting the intricate cover plate die, which only cuts partial outlines so that the entire piece stays intact. I then used blending brushes to blend Mist, Paradise, and Soft Olive with the included layering stencils, centering the images with their die cut outlines. So simple and so fast! I think these stencils would be so fun to use with glitter paste or even some DecoFoil gel and add some shining foil accents. Stencils are such a workhorse for your craft room!

After I had finished blending the pretty folk patterns on the die cut background, I used the standalone dies included in the Classic Kit to die cut some vellum butterflies and floral accents from colored cardstock, layering the floral accents on top of the vellum butterflies to help make them extra special and to help them be even more visible amongst the busy background. I think vellum and butterfly dies were made for each other; the semi-transparent vellum definitely conveys the lightness of fluttering butterflies! For the greeting, I stamped one of the sentiments from the Classic Kit onto some Mist cardstock using Paradise ink, then stamped it again using embossing ink and covered it with the new Iridescent Green Embossing Powder. This embossing powder adds such a beautiful, luminous shimmer to my sentiment and helps it to stand out from the Mist cardstock so well! I matted the sentiment strip on some Paradise cardstock, then popped up the greeting with some foam adhesive and added the butterflies using some tiny dots of liquid adhesive. Such a pretty kit with so many different elements that you can mix & match!

My next card uses the same shades of ink, this time paired with the new Folk Art Stamp and coordinating layering stencil. I first stamped the new Folk Art Stamp onto some white cardstock using embossing ink, then used the Iridescent Green Embossing Powder to emboss the image. Using the Iridescent Green Embossing Powder alone without any colorful ink beneath creates almost a tone-on-tone effect, very subtle, but beautiful when the light catches it just right. After embossing, I used the coordinating Folk Art layering stencil to blend Mist, Paradise, and Soft Olive inks.

After my focal point was finished, I trimmed the panel down and matted it on a slightly larger panel of Pinkfresh Studio Ocean Breeze glitter cardstock, creating a super delicate glittery border around my stenciled background. I adhered it to a full size A2 panel of Kiwi cardstock using liquid adhesive. For the greeting, I kept things super simple, heat embossing a “happy birthday” sentiment onto some more Kiwi cardstock using white embossing powder and matting the greeting with some Paradise cardstock. I popped the sentiment up with some foam adhesive, then added a few Trinity Stamps Imperial Crystal Rhinestone amongst the embossed and stenciled pattern. I love that this pattern is symmetrical, a hallmark of Scandinavian folk art. It makes my symmetrical-loving, right angled design brain happy!

For my last card, I used the adorable new Bird Family Fancy Die set to create a baby card! I stuck with the same color palette, allowing the pretty aquas to be the star of the show on this project, which I think are basically gender-neutral at this point and can be used for both boys and girls. I die cut the momma and baby bird from some iridescent white shimmer cardstock to make them extra special, then die cut the flowers and foliage from the Bird Family Fancy Die set using iridescent white mirror cardstock and some scraps of Kiwi and Paradise cardstock.

For the greeting, I used some of the recently-released A-D Alphabet dies and W-Z Alphabet Dies to create a large “BABY” word die cut. I cut these larger letters from Arctic cardstock, and because these letters are so large, they suit an A7 card beautifully! I trimmed down an A7 panel of Mist cardstock, then used some masking tape to mask the edges of one corner and blended some Paradise ink in just one corner. I also stamped and embossed an appropriate greeting from a stamp set that has sadly been discontinued. I popped all of the different die cut elements up on my blended background, using the bottom blended line as my guide for my die cut letters to keep them nice and straight. Finally, I added some Moonstone rhinestones for extra sparkle. This would be a super easy card to customize for twins or multiples! (those cards are so difficult to find; ask me how I know haha!!)

Well, that’s all for my projects today. Now for some fun giveaway information:

Hero Arts will give away a $50 gift card, drawn from the comments left across the hop. Enter by Sunday, April 7th at 11:59pm Pacific, and the winner will be announced on the Hero Arts blog the following week.

You can see the full hop list on the Hero Arts Blog. Thanks so much for stopping by today, and happy hopping!

Punny Man Card Monday: An A-Glazing Birthday!

This post was sponsored by Simon Says Stamp. Thanks, Simon!

Hi friends! Happy Man Card Monday! Each month, I try to share some inspiration geared solely towards the guys in our lives. While my husband can appreciate the artistry and the time and effort that I put into my floral cards, they are definitely not his cup of tea… so whenever I am creating the cards for this series, I try to think of things that he would like, whether it is his hobbies, preferred colors, neat techniques, or, as it is for today’s post, his favorite foods! Once a week, my girl has to be at school very early for choir practice, which means getting all four kids out of the house rather early… and I am by no means an early bird. (Have you seen that graphic about not being an early bird or a night owl, but some sort of permanently exhausted pigeon? Yep, that’s me.) So, to make getting out the door so much earlier just a little easier, I take my boys to get something fun for breakfast. Last week, we stopped to get some yummy chocolate cake donuts, and the icing was St. Patrick’s Day themed, providing the perfect inspiration for my card for this month’s Man Card Monday!

I started by stamping myself a bunch of donuts from Simon Says Stamp’s A-Glazing Day set. This stamp set features lots of different donuts, some heart-shaped for Valentine’s Day, others just regular old donuts that you can customize to your heart’s content. I wanted to recreate those colorful St. Patrick’s Day chocolate cake donuts, so I stamped the images using Simon’s Intense Black ink, which works perfectly with alcohol markers. I selected some peach and mint OLO Markers to color my iced chocolate cake donuts, adding some very subtle gray shadows to the squiggle of white icing on the top. I used the coordinating dies from the A-Glazing Day product suite to die cut the donuts and set them aside.

My husband and my big boy are both very mechanically inclined. They like to fiddle with stuff and are very good with tools. Because of this, I thought they would enjoy a shaker card, because It would give them something to do with their fidgety hands, haha! I wanted to add some simple, festive color behind my donuts, so I using blending brushes to blend Lucky and Peachy Pawsitively Saturated Inks around the edges of a 3.75″ x 5″ panel of white cardstock, trying to keep these two complementary colors away from each other to avoid making a muddy mess. After I had finished blending my background, I used the Layered Confetti Stencil to add some bokeh polka dots to my background, using the transparency of the stencil to see the location of my mint vs peach blending and layering the same color on top to create a tone-on-tone pattern.

To create my semi-flat shaker, I used some old stamp packaging to create my shaker pocket with some strong Tear-rific Tape from Simon Says Stamp, filling it with some coordinating peachy sequins from my stash of sequins. I don’t make shaker cards nearly as frequently as I used to, so I have lots of older supplies to use up!

I adhered the shaker panel to my full size A2 card front with some more strong double sided tape, then used foam squares to pop up the donuts on my card front. For the greeting, I stamped one of the punny sentiments on a strip of white cardstock using black pigment ink, then added clear embossing powder to make the sentiment extra bold and crisp. I nestled the sentiment amongst the donuts, popping it up with a double layer of foam squares to make it stand out a bit from the busy background. Though I normally shy away from puns, I think my husband would love this sentiment. It screams “dad joke” to me!, haha!

Well, that’s all for my project today! I know that the boys in my house would love this card, with it’s fun donut-theme, interactive shaker background, and punny sentiment. Thanks so much for stopping by today, and have a marvelous day!

Man Card Monday With Midnight Green and Water Sprite!

This post was sponsored by Simon Says Stamp. Thanks, Simon!

Hi friends! I am back with some projects for Man Card Monday. As a flower lover, I always find that I am short on cards appropriate for those manly min in my life, so I have decided to challenge myself to creating at least one card a month that is decidedly masculine. Today’s projects are an ode to green; I recently purchased some Tonic Water Sprite cardstock and thought how lovely it would look paired with Simon Says Stamp’s Midnight Green cardstock. It definitely did not disappoint! I find that green is the ultimate neutral, because you can pair it with more feminine colors to create an almost floral effect, or you can keep things simple with a monochromatic color palette and make it appropriate for any person!

Whenever I am searching for my starting point for the Man Card Monday series, I start by searching my dies. I find that bold, graphic dies work perfectly for creating masculine cards, and the Moving X Cover Plate and the Boho Chain die were both large and graphic, fitting the bill perfectly. Let’s get started with the details!

To start, I die cut the Moving X Cover Plate twice, once from Midnight Green cardstock and once from Tonic Water Sprite cardstock. Reserving all of the individual pieces, I began reassembling the die cut using both the shining, iridescent foil cardstock and accenting the pattern with some of the deep Midnight Green die cut pieces. I layered them on an A2 panel of Midnight Green cardstock, which leaves a bold border around the edge. The shine on this cardstock looks fabulous with the die cut pattern, making it almost metallic!

For the greeting, I heat embossed some of the sentiments included in the Big Old Birthday set. These sentiments are very generously sized, making them perfect for these masculine cards that need bold, impactful elements. I heat embossed the large greeting and the smaller sentiment strip using Platinum embossing powder on more Midnight Green cardstock, die cutting the large sentiment with the coordinating die and trimming the smaller one down with my trimmer. I popped them up on the shiny die cut background and decided that it didn’t need anything else; the bold background didn’t need any further enhancement with gems or textural elements!

For my second card, I put to use the marvelous Boho Chain die, again using the Midnight Green and Water Sprite combination. I die cut the Boho Chain die using the shiny foil cardstock and adhered it to the deep green A2 background using liquid adhesive. I popped up the diamond-shaped centers using foam squares to add some extra dimension. To accent the foil and add a bit more textural interest to the background, I trimmed down a piece of Altenew Forest Canopy Glitter cardstock to a thin strip and laid it next to my Boho Chain die cut. The iridescent coating on the foil paper offers many different shades of green, depending at which angle you view the paper, which makes it super easy to accent!

For the greeting, I selected another simple sentiment from Big Old Birthday, again embossing the sentiment stamps using Platinum embossing powder on more Midnight Green cardstock. The Platinum embossing powder stands out so nicely from the intense forest green cardstock! I die cut the large sentiment with the coordinating die, using my Tim Holtz guillotine trimmer to trim down the sentiment strip. I popped up the greeting pieces on the card front using foam adhesive squares, finally accenting the foiled chain die cut with some green pearls for one last simple, metallic accent.

Well, that’s all for today’s projects! If you are struggling to come up with a masculine card, I encourage you to check out these super graphic dies in the standalone die collection. A bold, graphic background is always an acceptable neutral, no mattern your recipient! Thanks so much for stopping by today, and have a marvelous day!

Man Card Monday: Let’s Party with Puppies!

This post was sponsored by Simon Says Stamp. Thanks, Simon!

Hi friends! Man Card Monday took a bit of a hiatus during the holidays because I just had too many Christmas cards that I wanted to share to make masculine cards. However, with the start of the new year, I wanted to get back into my typical routine, so Man Card Monday has returned! I had been focusing on cards for adult men prior to Christmas, but I thought for a couple of months I would try to create cards for little men…. little boys need cards occasionally, too! The sweet little pupper dog in the new Hello There Animals immediately made me think of a little boy’s birthday party theme, complete with his hat and bowtie! Let’s get started with the details on my project.

I began my card by stamping the puppy, party hat, and bowtie from Hello There Animals using Intense Black ink from Simon Says Stamp. I used my OLO markers to color the puppy a warm chocolate brown, adding some black spots and using a white gel pen to add highlights to his eyes and nose.

For the background, I used the Layered Confetti Stencil to create a polka dotted party! I used blending brushes to blend Cherry, Marine, Cadette Pawsitively Saturated Inks in a playful, masculine color scheme. Sometimes when I see red and blue, I immediately think “patriotic,” but the addition of the light blue Marine ink helps to lighten things up and make the palette more appropriate for a little fella! I wanted to create a highlighted area in the center for my puppy and sentiment, so I lightly blended some Cadette ink in the center of the stenciled panel.

For the greeting, I die cut the detail layer of the Let’s Party Die from black glitter cardstock and the shadow layer from more white Hammermill cardstock. I adhered the detail layer to the shadow using liquid adhesive, then popped up both the puppy and the greeting on the stenciled and blended panel using foam adhesive. I wanted to add one final element of red to the card, so I trimmed the stenciled panel down a bit and adhered the panel to the center of an A2 panel of cherry red cardstock, creating a crisp red frame around the edge.

Well, that’s all for my project today! That adorable little puppy has my heart. He was perfect for this birthday card for a little guy! Thanks so much for stopping by for the start of a new year of Man Card Monday, and have a marvelous day!