"Play" Time with Market Street Stamps!

I hope y'all had a chance to check out all the new releases from Market Street.  If you haven't, make sure you check them out here- and if you order before 11:59pm CDT on September 1st, you can 15% off each set, or 25% off the whole bundle.  But what if you already ordered them and are patiently awaiting your happy mail?  Don't fear, because Angelica cooked up a new linky party called the Market Street Block Party, where you can link up a new creation made with MSS stamps you already have for a chance to win a prize pack or even a guest DT spot!  Wowzers! And if that's not enough, Market Street is sponsoring this week's Play Date Cafe challenge:

The challenge colors are mint, ivory and coral.  I combined three new MSS sets to play along:

I started by stamping the cane background onto PTI's Melon Berry using Vintage Cream ink (and it inked up like a dream!).  Then I stamped and embossed the milk bottle from For All It's Worth onto Echo Park Springtime paper and cut it out.  I stamped the sunflowers from Autumn Greetings onto Vintage Cream paper, colored the centers with RV42 Copic, and added just a touch of shading to the petals with E00.  I adhered the stems to the back of the milk bottle, then popped the whole thing up with foam tape, and then decided to cut out another middle flower and pop it up.   I cut the little sentiment banner and stamped "thankful," also from Autumn Greetings, using A Muse Bermuda ink and attached a coral button.  I even remembered to cut a 1/4 inch off of my card so it will fit in an envelope with the tag hanging off the end!   Score one for Meg!

So I know I have been very remiss in blogging and commenting.  School just wipes me out!  Plus I spent all of last weekend reading two very good books (#34 and 35):

Happens Every Day and A Year and Six Seconds: A Love Story, both by Isabel Gillies.  I like her style of writing, which was much like reading an email from your best friend.   The first one made me really thankful that I have never had to deal with divorce, and the second one made me really thankful about my first six seconds with Mr Corgi.

Plus Mr Corgi is so nice to me: he made me an early birthday dinner on Friday so I could open my present early.  He got me the pancake lens I've been eyeing for our camera!  I haven't had a chance to take it outside yet, but Addison was a willing model last night to test out the low-light capabilites:

I know what you're thinking, and yes, her eye liner does cost us a fortune every month.  ;)

Poor Man's Spectrum Ink Pad

So not only was I able to combine the two Monday Splitcoast challenges (embossing on embossing for Try a New Technique and dry embossing for Clean and Simple) with this card, but I was also able to show off my new Poor Man's Spectrum Ink Pad technique that I've been trying to get to work over the weekend.  It all started with a sailboat stamp I bought on sale that would be perfect for a brayered sunset.  I only have ink spots, not full-size dye ink pads, so I was having a tough time inking up my brayer nicely, when I stumbled upon the idea of using an acetate sheet as an ink pad, and not only that, but as a spectrum ink pad. The sailboat never ended up working--I think my embossing buddy has been tainted, since I can't get a nice clean embossing (same issue with this card, but less noticeable).

Anyway, here is the poor man's spectrum ink pad I made for this card:

I simply inked old olive, cameo coral, ruby red, and not quite navy onto my acetate sheet and inked up my brayer, moving it back and forth just a little so the colors blended on the brayer (and on the acetate).  Here is the result of the first pass:

I had already stamped PTI TextStyles in Creamy Caramel, then the SU Botanical Blooms in Versafine Grey and clear embossed.  Then I colored in the flowers with a versamarker and clear embossed again.  I think I ended up loading up my acetate sheet and brayering a total of three times, and then once more with just the old olive and cameo coral to try to cover the text.

Then I embossed the image using the Sixxiz polka dot embossing folder, matted it with Not Quite Navy, added a kraft-colored ribbon, and adhered it to a kraft base.  The PTI Mega Mixed Messages sentiment is stamped in Not Quite Navy.

Has anyone seen this ink-up-the-acetate brayering before?  I looked around and hadn't seen it mentioned.  I feel I should mentioned that even though I inked the lighter colors first, my cameo coral ink spot did look a little dark on the edges, but I did try stamping a solid stamp with it and it came out fine.  Same with the summer sun ink pad when I did the sunset.  Speaking of which, here are some more examples that might inspire you to try it out:

You can see in the middle picture my embossing woes.  :(  The one on the right is Memento Angel Pink, Rose Bud, and Lady Bug I tried out on some scrap paper. 

Ugh--it's errand day today AND it just started raining.  How badly do we need food in the house, really?