Sixth Street Sundries

Emily Midgett

zig clean color

The last gasp of summer.

Hi! Feels like a long time since I posted just for fun… I’ve been SO busy this week getting the Great Craft Room Purge of 2017 organized and everything shipped. Let me tell ya, I am definitely one of those right-brained artistic types when it comes to organization. I enjoy organizing, but I usually end up making more of a mess than I do actually making things neater lol. Transfer that to the bazillion emails I’ve had from people wanting to purchase items…. my brain has been buzzing since Sunday lol. If you want to see what’s left (and there’s still a huge amount of stamps and dies left!), you can click here.

Anyway, I had some lovely blooms from Altenew’s Adore You stamp set that I’d colored for the most recent The Daily Marker 30 Day challenge using my Zig markers. I love my Zigs when I want a bright burst of bold color, and this color combination of fuchsia and a sunset orange color are just so pretty together. I started by heat embossing several of the blooms using gold detail embossing powder onto Canson Montval watercolor paper, then colored them using my Zig markers and damp Silverwhite paintbrush. I fussy cut them and began work on the background.

For the background, I used Altenew’s beautiful Midnight Violet ink to lightly blend a little halo in the center of a white, A2 top folding notecard. I then arranged my blooms on the card front and used Press ‘n Seal to pick them up without losing my carefully-arranged bouquet. I added dimensional adhesive to the back and pressed them down on the card front while still attached to the Press ‘n Seal, then peeled it away. I added a gorgeous new-to-me die from My Favorite Things: Big Hugs. I cut it from some sparkly gold glitz paper from DCWV. The final touch was a smattering of sequins from my stash

I hope you’ve enjoyed this card! A last gasp of summer, as we’ve been having temps in the 80’s here this week. (blah.) Here’s to the weather cooling down soon! Have a marvelous day! I will be back on Saturday with a post for World Cardmaking Day. 🙂 Stay tuned!

One giant leap.

Good morning! Happy Monday! I’m here with you today to share something that is a little petrifying for me, but has been on my bucket list for quite a while…

my first video.

I really hope you like it. I’ve had a few people (here’s looking at you, Donna! 🙂 ) request a video of my Zig marker coloring, and so this is my first attempt to explain why I do what I do. I hope it’s clear and maybe useful to someone!

In case you can’t watch the video or would like to have some written instructions on how to make the card showcased in the video, I started by heat embossing one of the peonies, a bud, and some foliage from Ellen Hutson’s Mondo Peony stamp set onto some Canson Montval watercolor paper with gold embossing powder. I then used Zig markers in shades of Light Violet, Purple, and Violet (and I explain exactly what I do with them in the video!) along with my damp paintbrush to add color, depth, and shading to my blooms. The leaves were colored with Turquoise Green and Persian Green Zig markers. After I had finished coloring, I fussy cut the flowers out, but you could easily use the dies and save yourself some time. 😉 I arranged my flowers in a little bouquet on an A2 card front, then picked them all up using the ever-helpful Press ‘n Seal so I wouldn’t have to fiddle with them later.

I have soooo many 6×6 (and 8.5×11 and 12×12…) patterned paper pads in my stash that I hardly ever use… it’s nice to know they’re there when I need a sheet or two, like the one sheet I used for this card! I trimmed down this black and white striped panel from a stack from Hobby Lobby and added a thin strip of fuchsia colored glitter paper at the bottom, then added several strips of dimensional adhesive. I adhered a piece of lavender card stock to my card base, then adhered my striped dimensional panel to it. After adding both liquid adhesive and dimensional adhesive to my peonies, I laid them down on my card base. My greeting is from Concord and 9th’s Kindhearted stamp set. I simply cut a strip of vellum and heat embossed the greeting using the same gold embossing powder that I used on the peony.

And that’s it! A fairly simple final layout for the semi-involved coloring.

I hope you’ve enjoyed my first foray into video making. It was definitely a process, and something I would probably never have even attempted if my friend Jess hadn’t pushed me (and guided me so well). I hope you will subscribe to my channel, because I have a few more projects up my sleeve! Hopefully, I will get more comfortable with the whole process and be able to create videos even more quickly in the future. Practice makes perfect!

Thanks for stopping by. Have a marvelous week!

Edited to add: I have had a few people ask about the Absorber that I use in my video to dab my paintbrush on. This is one of my most useful items in my craft room, and it’s economical, too! It’s basically a car chamois…. automotive types use them to dry their cars after giving them a wash. I use mine to clean my stamps off in addition to using it to dab excess water from my paintbrush. When you buy an Absorber, they are relatively large; I cut mine down into 4 squares and rotate them. I just throw them in the washing machine when they’re looking too grungy!!! I hope that helps answer any questions you might have! 🙂

Pink and blue…

Good morning! A quick card today… I had some pretty watercolored die cuts hanging around from the last Daily Marker 30 Day challenge from March, and I decided to (ahem, finally) create a card with them.

I started by die cutting and heat embossing the pretty blooms and foliage from Altenew’s Beautiful Day stamp and die set using silver embossing powder. Next, I used my Zig markers (Light Blue, Sugared Almond Pink, and Persian Green) and damp paintbrush to color the images and add shading. I arranged them in a pretty swag and used Press ‘n Seal to pick it up and add adhesive to the back.

Before I adhered everything down, I used my Clarity Stencil Brushes and some pale blue ink to add a bit of light shading around the edges of my pale blue card front. After that, I placed my floral swag on the card front, then added a dimensional silver glitter die cut Thinking of You from Papertrey Ink’s Big Basics line. The final touch was a few sequins from my stash to add a bit of shimmer and sparkle.

Well, that’s all for me today! I hope you enjoyed my project. I love working on bits and bobs of projects. Whenever I’m feeling down, both creatively and in real life, I find myself reaching for my watercolors and some pretty flowers to paint. That usually does the trick for my blues, and then I have pretty watercolored flowers just waiting to be made into a quick project!

Have a marvelous day, friends!