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Sixth Street Sundries

Emily Midgett

no line watercolor

Altenew Color Therapy Blog Hop+Giveaway!

Hi there! Happy Monday! Today, I’m excited to be a stop on the Altenew Color Therapy blog hop! This hop celebrates all things coloring, which, if you’ve visited my blog before, you know is one of my most favorite things, in any and all mediums. I absolutely love Kathy Racoosin’s 30 Day Coloring Challenge. It provides me with a wonderful daily excuse to get out my coloring mediums and just play! From Altenew:

Altenew is collaborating with the amazing Kathy Racoosin from The Daily Marker to inspire crafters to find joy through coloring. Kathy is celebrating her 14th 30 Day Coloring Challenge until the end of November 2019. This blog hop is meant to encourage you to participate by coloring something and share it on social media using the hashtag #thedailymarker30day. We hope they find “Me Time” and enjoy the benefits that coloring will give. 

I created a super colorful project today using the Altenew Winter Wonderland watercolor brush markers and the Precious Peony stamps and dies. Let’s get started with the details!

I began by stamping a few of the individual floral sprays from Precious Peony using Ink on 3 Fadeout Ink on some hot press watercolor paper. I then used the Winter Wonderland Watercolor Brush Markers to do some no-line watercoloring on these pretty peony images in one of my favorite “fiesta” color schemes- bright yellows, oranges, and fuchsia. I die cut both sprays with the coordinating dies.

Next, I stamped some elements from the Baroque Motifs stamp set onto a panel of deep fuchsia cardstock using Magenta ink. I also blended some more Magenta ink on the opposite corner of the card front using blending brushes.

I created the sentiment using the Sentiment Strips stamp set and the Tall Alpha die set. I first white heat embossed the greeting from Sentiment Strips on a strip of pretty marigold yellow cardstock, then die cut “sweet” from some more yellow cardstock using the Tall Alpha die set, adhering all of the pieces to the card front using liquid adhesive. I cut one of the peony die cuts in half and created a unique bouquet for the damask corner of the card front, adhering the die cuts using foam adhesive. The last step was to add some pretty sparkles for a touch of bling!

Well, that’s all for my project today! I hope you’ll participate in the Daily Marker 30 Day Coloring Challenge…. it’s so much fun, and so relaxing! Now, for some fun giveaway information!

Altenew is giving away a $30 gift certificate to 5 lucky winners and Kathy from The Daily Maker is also giving away her original 5”x7” watercolor artwork(including a custom frame). Please leave a comment on the Altenew Card Blog by 11/22/2019 for a chance to win.

We’ll 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 blogs on 11/24/2019.

Thank you so much for stopping by today! Your next stop is Jaycee Gaspar. Here’s the full hop list in case you get lost:

Altenew Card Blog
Kathy Racoosin
Ashlea Cornell
Anna Komenda
Emily Midgett <— you are here
Jaycee Gaspar
Gayatri Murali
Hussena Calcuttawala
Kymona Tracey
Keeway Tsao
Laurie Willison
Kristina Pokazanieva
LauraJane
Lilith Eeckels
Nenette S. Madero
Norine Borys
TaeEun Yoo
Maryam Perez
Tania Ahmed
Vicky Papaioannou
Virginia Lu

Altenew October 2019 Stamp+Die Release Blog Hop+Giveaway!

Hi there! I’m super excited to be taking part in Altenew’s October 2019 Stamp and Die Release Blog Hop! Altenew always has incredible stamp and die releases, and this month features some absolutely stunning new florals, as well as some beautiful holiday stamps. You should have arrived here from Jen Schow‘s blog, and your next stop is Svitlana Shayevich‘s blog. You can also start back at the beginning in case you get lost! I have three projects for you today featuring the new goodies, so let’s get started with the details!

For my first project, I used the gorgeous new Precious Peony stamps and dies. I began by stamping the main floral image onto some Copic-friendly white cardstock using black ink, then used my Copic markers in pretty shades of peach to color the image. I die cut the image with the coordinating dies.

On the white A2 card base, I stamped the main floral image a few times in the upper left hand corner using Coral Bliss ink, then using a blending brush, blended some Coral Bliss and Coral Berry inks over the top of the stamped images, creating a subtle tone-on-tone pattern. I adhered the Copic-colored die cut to the card front using foam adhesive, adding a sentiment (also from Precious Peony) and some jewels for sparkle!

For my second card, I used the beautiful new Winter Wishes stamp set to create this serene holiday card. I began by stamping the main image from Winter Wishes onto some watercolor cardstock using Obsidian Black ink, then adding clear embossing powder over the top and heating it. I used my Daniel Smith watercolors to add some loose watercoloring to the image in serene tones of blue and green.

After I’d finished watercoloring the panel, I used the oval die in the Create A Wreath die set to cut a window from a panel of creamy white A2 cardstock. I stamped a greeting from Winter Wishes on the bottom, again with Obsidian ink and clear embossing powder, then adhered the window panel over the top of the watercolored scene using foam adhesive.

For my final project, I wanted to do some no-line watercolor using the absolutely gorgeous new Grateful Heart set! This set features both the outline and layering stamps, so that you have endless crafty possibilities! The lines on these new florals are utterly graceful; they were an absolute pleasure to color. I began by stamping a little bouquet on a long rectangular panel of watercolor cardstock with Ink On 3 Fadeout Ink, using the mask stencils from the Grateful Heart bundle to create a seamless bouquet of flowers and foliage.

Next, I used the stunningly vibrant and beautiful colors in the Spring Garden Watercolor Brush pens to do some no-line watercoloring, adding lots of layers for extra dimension. After I’d completed the watercoloring, I trimmed the watercolor panel down slightly and mounted it on a mat of deep fuchsia cardstock. I also heat embossed a greeting from Grateful Heart using white embossing powder on some strips of the same deep fuchsia cardstock, which I mounted on the card front using foam adhesive. The final touch was to add some bright turquoise jewels to add a touch of sparkle and texture!

Well, that’s all for my projects today. Now, there are several ways to win today, so pay close attention:

To celebrate this release, Altenew is giving away a $50 gift certificate to 6 lucky winners! Please leave a comment on the Altenew Card Blog and/or Altenew Scrapbook Blog by 10/16/2019 for a chance to win.

We’ll also draw a winner to receive a $20 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 blogs on 10/20/2019. The more comments you leave, the more chances you have to win!

Here’s the full hop list in case you get lost:

Altenew Card Blog
Jennifer McGuire
Nathalie DeSousa
Kelly Griglione
Nicole Picadura
Mindy Eggen
Jaycee Gaspar
Lilith Eeckels
Ashlea Cornell
Jen Schow
Emily Midgett
Svitlana Shayevich
Kathleen Graumüller
Therese Calvird
Altenew Scrapbook Blog
Vicky Papaioannou
Norine Borys
Terri Koszler
Maryam Perez
LauraJane
Virginia Lu
Kymona Tracey
Jessica Frost-Ballas
Sveta Fotinia
Amber Rain Davis
Laurie Willison
Caly Person
Reiko Tsuchida
Keeway Tsao
Zinia Redo
Kelly Janes
Erum Tasneem

Pinkfresh Studio and Simon Says Stamp Stamptember Collaboration!

Hi there! I’m super excited to be helping debut today’s Simon Says Stamp Stamptember collaboration. The folks at Simon Says Stamp have teamed up with the ladies of Pinkfresh Studio and created an absolutely gorgeous floral stamp and die set, which I’ve used to do some no-line watercoloring. Let’s get started with the details!

I began by stamping the beautiful floral stamp (which covers almost the entire front of an A2 card) on some watercolor paper using Ink On 3’s Fadeout Ink. I then used my Daniel Smith watercolors in shades of cool Carbazole Violet, Quinacridone Magenta, and Indanthrone Blue.

While my watercoloring was drying, I used the Pretty Frames die from Pinkfresh Studio with some pretty lilac colored cardstock to die cut a simple embossed frame for the edge of my floral panel.

I also white embossed a sentiment from the new Pinkfresh Studio Stamptember stamp set on a rectangle of the same lilac cardstock that I used for the frame, which I adhered to the center of the card using foam adhesive. The final touch was to add some Essentials Jewels for a bit of sparkle!

Well, that’s all for my project today. I hope you’ve enjoyed this project from Stamptember and Pinkfresh Studio! Stamptember is so much fun! Thanks so much for stopping by, and have a marvelous day.

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!

The Stamp Market Insta Hop-Some Kind of Wonderful!

Good morning! I had the honor of being asked to participate in an Instagram hop to celebrate one of the prettiest stamps from The Stamp Market’s newest release with some of my closest friends (and fellow flower lovers): Jessica Frost-Ballas and Caly Person! The Stamp Market debuted an absolutely jaw-dropping floral stamp yesterday called Some Kind of Wonderful (SM|EH), and I am so honored that I got to play with it and share my project with you! We had a little Instagram hop with prizes, and Amy has also generously given me (and Jessica and Caly) a Some Kind of Wonderful (SM|EH) stamp set to give away to one lucky blog reader, so read all the way to the end to find out how to enter the giveaway!

The main floral image in the Some Kind of Wonderful (SM|EH) stamp set is really quite large, so I wanted to take advantage of that generous sizing by creating an equally generously-sized card!! This whopper is 6×6! I did some creative masking and stamping on this project, so let’s get started with the details.

I began by using my T-square and a pencil to lightly trace a square in the center of my 5.75″ squared panel of watercolor paper. I then heat embossed the greeting from Some Kind of Wonderful (SM|EH) in the bottom left corner of the square using Platinum embossing powder. After determining my sentiment placement, I decided to have one large, full bloom hanging over into the square, so I erased some of the square, then stamped one full bloom using Ink On 3’s Fadeout Ink. I then used Post It notes to mask the rest of the square (covering some of the stamped bloom, as well), stamping a pattern around the edge at varied angles.

I wanted to do some monochromatic watercoloring in peaches and rosy pinks, so I used some very heavily diluted Quinacridone Coral to do a light wash in the background of the floral pattern, leaving the center square free of color, then used a combination of Quinacridone Pink and Rose of Ultramarine for the petals, with touches of New Gamboge at the edges of the petals for some sunkissed contrast.

For the flower centers, I added a concentrated section of Neutral Tint to one side of the center, then after it had dried, I used the very tip of my paintbrush to stipple some concentrated Neutral Tint, keeping the stippling more concentrated where the color was deeper, and tapering off where the color lightened. I used a similar technique for the foliage, adding color to the leaves themselves (Phthalo Turquoise) and blending it out with clean water, allowing it to dry, then using the very tip of my brush and some concentrated color to add the veins. Allowing the first layer of watercoloring to dry before adding the detail layer prevents the concentrated color from bleeding on the wet watercoloring.

After all of my watercoloring had dried, I mounted the painting on a 6×6 panel of pink glitter card stock.

Well, that’s all for this project! This is going to be a hard stamp set to put down… I am eagerly awaiting the next Daily Marker 30 Day challenge so that I can play with this set even more! Amy from The Stamp Market has generously donated a Some Kind of Wonderful stamp set for me to give away to one of my loyal followers! All you have to do is leave me a comment telling me what your favorite coloring medium is. I’d love it if you were also a subscriber, either via email or otherwise, but it’s not required. I’m getting ready to go on vacation, so I will leave the giveaway open until I get back on 6/15!

I also highly encourage you to check out the beautiful projects made by my dear friends, Jessica Frost-Ballas and Caly Person! You can see more details on this stamp set on The Stamp Market blog, as well! Thanks so much for stopping by today, and have a marvelous day!