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Sixth Street Sundries

Emily Midgett

rainbow

Simon Says Stamp STAMPtember with Colorado Craft Company!

Hi friends! I have a sickly little guy tonight (booo stomach bugs… going to be a long night, I fear!) so I’m just popping in quickly to share my project for the Simon Says Stamp STAMPtember collaboration set with my friends over at Colorado Craft Company! This sweet set features a darling illustration from Anita Jeram, full of the charm that you would expect from Anita’s precious illustrations!

You can purchase this stamp set, featuring lots of lovely sentiments perfect for crafty friends or anybody needing encouragement, both on it’s own as a standalone stamp set or as a product suite with the coordinating dies.

I stamped the main image and some extra flowers with black pigment ink onto Arches Cold Press watercolor paper, then covered them with clear embossing powder to make the lines nice and crisp, reminiscent of Anita’s storybook illustrations. I used Daniel Smith watercolors to add some soft pastel colors to the stamped background, creating a soft rainbow over the entirety of the panel, then adding details to the images with more concentrated color. I used a couple of gray OLO markers to add simple color to the mouse. I fussy cut the individual flowers, popping them up on the watercolored panel, then matted the entire panel with a slightly larger piece of black glitter cardstock, matting that with a full size A2 panel of black cardstock. The final touch was a few gems for sparkle!

Well, that’s all for my project today! If you love these limited edition STAMPtember collaboration sets, don’t hesitate on them, because they frequently sell out very quickly, and once they’re gone, they are not restocked! Thanks so much for stopping by today, and happy STAMPtember!

Rainbow Splash Inks for Back-To-School!

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

Hi friends! I know that it’s a little late in the year for back-to-school cards, but the new Rainbow Splash inks had me in “rainbow mode” and I couldn’t stop myself from creating bunches of projects with rainbow themes. I have been having fun experimenting with ombré stamping and embossing over the top to create a suitable canvas for emboss/resist technique, and I wanted to try it out with this new rainbow of ink colors in the Rainbow Splash line. I have four young kids, and primary color rainbows are just a part of life. I thought the fabulous School Supplies background stamp would be a perfect candidate to try out the ombré emboss/resist technique with which I’ve been playing, and I created this super fun and colorful shaker card to celebrate the start of another school year! Let’s get started with the details.

This ombré emboss/resist technique is one with which I’ve been playing a lot lately. I started experimenting with this technique earlier this year, and each time I use it, I find it more and more magical! Using my MISTI, I stamped the School Supplies background stamp with Scarlet, Pumpkin, Canary, Lime, and Sea Rainbow Splash inks. To create a smooth transition between each ink color, I tap my stamp with the first ink color, then use a microfiber cloth or blending brush on the edge of the line of ink. This extra step helps to make the ink color fade away without creating a harsh line. I close the door to my MISTI, then wipe the ink away with the microfiber cloth and stamp the next ink color, this time tapping the top and bottom lines to create a smooth fade into the previous and following colors. I repeat this process with each color of ink until I have an ombré stamped image!

While the stamp and paper are still in place in my MISTI, I stamp the image again using sticky embossing ink and cover it with clear embossing powder. This clear embossing layer “seals” the stamped image, and I think it helps to smooth some of the ink lines that I didn’t get quite perfect, as well. The added embossing also helps to maintain the vibrance of the ink color, so that I can ink blend over the top in any color that I want! I also used this technique on a greeting from XL Student Greetings, using the same ink colors and technique as the background.

Once I had finished my rainbow stamping for the background and the sentiment, I used Blending Brushes to lightly blend the same shades of ink around the edge of the stamped card front, creating a lovely rainbow glow on my background. I created a thin white frame using my Fiskars trimmer, backing it with a panel of clear acetate and adding foam tape all around the edge to create a shaker card. I filled the shaker with a ton of coordinating rainbow sequins and star confetti from my stash. (I found my huge box of sequins that has been neglected in favor of gems lately, and have decided that I need to keep making shakers to put the sparkly sequins to use!!) I added the rainbow sentiment to the center of the shaker window, creating a super colorful and fun card, perfect for a student or a teacher!

Well, that’s all for my project today! I promise, I will be back to the regularly scheduled flowers soon, but the beautiful inks and colored cardstock from the Rainbow Splash collection have been so inspiring that I just couldn’t move on to anything else until I got my rainbow fill! Thanks so much for stopping by today, and have a marvelous day!

More Rainbow Inspiration Featuring Simon Says Stamp’s New Rainbow Splash Inks!

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

Sometimes, it can be challenging to come up with the perfect rainbow colors. You can totally change the feel of the rainbow by tweaking even one shade, and finding that perfect traditional rainbow gradient can be a little overwhelming amongst all of the inks available. The new Rainbow Splash line from Simon Says Stamp has the benefit of being curated to be a perfect rainbow! I normally shy away from the typical ROYGBIV rainbow, but I have had the Painted Rainbow stamp set waiting for the perfect project, and pairing it with the new Rainbow Splash inks gave me the opportunity! I was inspired to create another project as well, using those same traditional rainbow colors, so let’s get started with the details!

Both of my projects feature Crimson, Pumpkin, Dandelion, Grass, Lake, Heather, and Princess inks in traditional ROYGBIV order. I love that there’s no guesswork involved in creating a perfect rainbow!!

For my first card, I stamped the different pieces of the Painted Rainbow stamp set using the Crimson, Pumpkin, Dandelion, Grass, Lake, Heather, and Princess inks from the Rainbow Splash line. This background stamp was super easy to use with my MISTI, because all I had to do was stamp, line up the next piece alongside the first, then remove the first and stamp the second in the next rainbow shade! So quick and easy, especially since my ink colors were ready to go. I stamped the rainbow on a 5×5 piece of cardstock, then lightly blended around the edges using the coordinating ink colors to create a rainbow glow. I created a simple shaker frame by using my Fiskars trimmer to trim the center out of a panel of 5×5″ white cardstock, backing it with a piece of clear acetate.

After I had finished the frame, I die cut the Oh Happy Day die from some sparkling, iridescent white glitter cardstock and adhered it to the center of my shaker frame. I filled my shaker with tons of iridescent rainbow confetti (I do wish that I’d added more red to make it look a bit more rainbow-y), and then closed up the shaker! I love the square shape; I need to do that more often. Such an interesting way to change things up, providing different proportions with which to work.

For my second card, I used the same Crimson, Pumpkin, Dandelion, Grass, Lake, Heather, and Princess ink combination from the Rainbow Splash line, this time blending the colors together to create a most beautiful rainbow background! I started by blending the colors ROYGBIV style from the top down on a panel of white cardstock. I then ran the blended panel through my die cutting machine using the Cascading Hearts embossing folder from the Rainbow Splash collection. To help emphasize the hearts a bit, I gently swiped my white pigment ink pad over the top of the raised areas, which helps them stand out a bit more. I trimmed down the panel, matting it on a slightly larger piece of white cardstock, then matting both of those pieces with a super sparkly, A2 sized piece of Simon Says Stamp’s holographic glitter paper, which adds a whole new level of rainbow sparkle to the card!

For the greeting, I heat embossed one of the sentiments from the Happy Blooms stamp set on white cardstock using silver embossing powder to coordinate with the silver holographic cardstock in the background. I die cut the greeting with one of the Nested Round Hearts dies, then used the residual ink left on my blending brushes to add a slight glow to the edges of my heart sentiment die cut.

Before I completely assembled my card, I knew I wanted to add a fluffy red bow to accent my heart die cut, but I didn’t have just the right shade of red ribbon in my stash. Instead of compromising the mental image of this card that I had in my head, I chose to dye some plain white ribbon using an alcohol marker! Having a supply of white ribbon plus your rainbow of alcohol markers in your stash means that you always have a perfectly matched ribbon for your card. I tied my red ribbon in a big fat bow, then added my heart die cut over the top with some foam adhesive. A few Rainbow Splash Gems in a rainbow gradient added the final touch of sparkle!

Well, that’s all for today’s projects! I hope you’re not tired of rainbows, because I am finding the new products in the brand new Rainbow Splash line from Simon Says Stamp so very inspiring!! Thanks so much for stopping by today, and have a marvelous day!

More Rainbow Splash Inspiration with Simon Says Stamp!

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

Have you taken a peek at the new Rainbow Splash line from the Simon Says Stamp STAMPtember release? These beautiful new products are curated specifically to be super approachable for both the newbie and seasoned crafter alike! If you want more information or have questions about this new Rainbow Splash line, I encourage you to watch the replay of the livestream that Heidi filmed; it holds lots of great information and answers some burning questions that you might have about these new products! (You can watch the replay HERE.) In my introductory post, I shared some projects with a less traditional “rainbow” palette, instead focusing on a cool ombré color palette that more closely fits my personal tastes. However, the vivid rainbow colors of the entire ink line for the Rainbow Splash collection intrigued me, despite my general disinterest on the ROY portion of ROYGBIV. (Sorry to the red, orange, and yellow lovers out there!)

I tried to keep my cards a little less challenging to make them more easily replicated by both newbie and seasoned crafters, focusing instead on the resplendent traditional rainbow that you can create using the new Rainbow Splash colors.

My first project is a shaker card filled with a rainbow of flowers and sequins, and framed by a vivid blended rainbow frame! I began by stamping the flowers from the Happy Blooms stamp set on a panel of Rainbow Splash White Cardstock using Scarlet, Pumpkin, Dandelion, Lime, Sea, and Heather inks, working from the top left corner of my A2 panel to the bottom right. I also used those same colors to blend around the outer edges of another panel of A2 cardstock and used my trimmer to create a rainbow frame. I backed the opening with some lightweight vellum, which still allows the super bold colors in my floral rainbow to be visible, but slightly muted.

After creating my frame, I added strips of foam adhesive to enclose the back of the frame and filled it with a variety of rainbow colored sequins that I have in my stash. I heat embossed the greeting from Bold Messages using white embossing powder on black cardstock and adhered it in the center of my shaker window. Such a fun, happy card with so much vivid color! And who doesn’t like a shaker card??

My second card features the same background: a rainbow floral cascade, but this time instead of stamping the images full strength with these super juicy ink pads, I chose to stamp off once to create a more subtle color palette. (If rainbow can even be called “subtle” haha!) I simply inked up my floral stamps from the Happy Blooms stamp set using Scarlet, Pumpkin, Dandelion, Lime, Sea, Heather, and Princess inks, stamping first on a piece of scrap paper off to the side before stamping my pattern on my white cardstock.

After I had finished stamping my background pattern, I matted the panel with a slightly larger panel of Black Cardstock, creating a thin black frame around the outside of my patterned panel. I used the coordinating shade of Rainbow Splash Gems for the centers of each flower, adding some delicious texture and sparkle to the card front. I heat embossed a greeting from the Happy Blooms set and mounted it in the corner of my card front using foam adhesive for a little extra height.

My last card is probably my most involved project for today. I began by blending a full size A2 panel and a slightly smaller panel of white cardstock using Scarlet, Pumpkin, Dandelion, Lime, and Sea inks on the edges of approximately the same areas on both panels. I ran the full size panel through my die cut machine with the Twinkling Stars embossing folder from the Rainbow Splash release, then blended a bit more over the top with the same colors to make those embossed stars stand out a bit more.

After I had finished blending, I stamped the balloons from the Birthday Wishes stamp set on the upper right hand corner of my smaller blended panel, trying to keep the stamped balloon colors consistent with the blended areas. I used the Birthday Wishes Dies to die cut a glittery star-shaped balloon using Luxe Glitter Cardstock-Basic. I love that the holographic glitter picks up on the rainbow colors of the background! I heat embossed a greeting from Birthday Wishes on some black cardstock and trimmed them down into strips. I added an ever-so-slightly larger piece of vellum behind my balloon panel to frame it on the star-embossed background and popped it up with foam adhesive. Finally, I added a few Gems for some sparkle!

Well, that’s all for these projects! I hope you’re loving the new Rainbow Splash line from STAMPtember, as well as all of the fabulous collaborations announced each day! This month is so darn fun and really celebrates the stamping community as a whole. Thanks so much for stopping by today, and have a marvelous day!

Weekend Playtime: Trinity Stamps x 2!

Hi friends! I was excited to be asked to help my friends at Trinity Stamps celebrate their birthday earlier this summer (check out that post HERE), and summertime being the crazytown that it is with four kids plus the accompanying summertime activities plus working, I haven’t had a chance to post these other projects that I made with the goodies the folks at Trinity were so kind as to send me! I have two projects to share with you using some old and some newer goodies, so let’s get started with the details!

I am a sucker for a beautiful calligraphy font, and the Big Celebrate Foil & Cut (TS | SSS) is so gorgeous. To accompany the festive intent of the sentiment, I hot foiled it using Speckled Prism Glitter Foil. It creates an iridescent rainbow sparkle… so festive and fun! I hot foiled the Celebrate onto some Hammermill cardstock, which is my favorite white cardstock for pretty much everything except watercoloring, then die cut it with the coordinating die.

For the background, I put the Stars & Sprinkles Stencil Set (TS | SSS) to use, color coordinating the sprinkles to the iridescent colors in the hot foiled sentiment! I used blending brushes to blend Dragonfruit (C9 | SSS), Grapefruit (C9 | SSS), Buttercup (C9), Sea Glass (C9 | SSS), and Harbor (C9 | SSS) inks on the stencil, then went around the edges of the card front to create a gorgeous, colorful rainbow that coordinated perfectly with the colors on the background. Such a fun way to create a super colorful card front!

I also die cut several sizes of balloon using the Celebration Balloons Dies (TS | SSS) and some different iridescent cardstock textures. I used iridescent white glitter paper, iridescent shimmer pearl cardstock, and iridescent vellum, layering them all together in a cluster and hiding the foam adhesive behind the solid die cut balloons in order to keep the vellum balloons nice and clean! I used a black pen to create the balloon strings super quickly.

To coordinate with the hot foiled sentiment, I silver embossed a greeting from the Simply Sentimental Birthday (TS | SSS) stamp set onto a strip of white cardstock. I like to keep the sentiment pieces as cohesive to the background as possible, so I used the residual ink leftover on the blending brushes to blend a rainbow on both the foiled die cut and the embossed sentiment die cut. After popping up the sentiment pieces with foam adhesive, I added some iridescent Suncatcher gems for even more iridescent sparkle! (If you haven’t checked out Trinity’s collection of jewels, you are totally missing out; I use them on almost every card!!) I absolutely love how this card turned out! Nothing beats a pretty rainbow, right?

My second card features a totally different style and color scheme; I used the beautiful Teacup Blooms Stamps (TS | SSS) and Dies (TS | SSS) to create the vintage vibe on this encouragement card! I started by stamping the images from Teacup Blooms (TS | SSS) onto some watercolor paper using black pigment ink, then clear embossing over the top. The embossing helps make the watercoloring go lickety split, because the raised lines help to keep the watercolor inside each specific area. I used Daniel Smith watercolors to add some soft pinks, purples, and creamy yellows to the images, then die cut the images using the Coordinating Dies (TS | SSS).

To coordinate with the soft colors on the teacup, I wanted to keep the rest of the card simple and ladylike, so I die cut the A7 Diamond Eyelet Cover Plate Background (TS | SSS) from some ivory cardstock. The ivory cardstock coordinated beautifully with the soft, buttery yellow on the teacup and definitely gives off a vintage tablecloth vibe! Because the cover plate die is generously sized to fit an A7 card front, you can not only use it for A7 but also for A2 and mini slimline card fronts! I love when products can be used in multiple ways.

I trimmed down the lacy “tablecloth” to fit in the center of an A2 black cardstock card front, leaving a crisp black border around the edge. I also heat embossed a greeting from the Punny Cup of Tea sentiment set (TS | SSS) using Platinum embossing powder. I arranged all of the die cuts and sentiment strip on the “tablecloth” and adhered them using foam adhesive. The final touch was to add a few Andesine Aura jewels for some sparkle!

Well, that’s all for my projects today! Trinity Stamps just released some gorgeous new Autumn and Halloween themed goodies, so be sure to take a peek at those, as well. Thanks so much for stopping by today, and have a marvelous weekend!