Simon Say Stamp "Distress It" Challenge

Hi there! I have a card with a story this week. I made this card for the current Simon Say Stamp Wednesday Challenge. The theme this week is "distress it," and they're featuring Tim Holtz products. 

Last month, my mother-in-law house/pet sat for us, and to fill the time and have some creative fun she looked through my stash and wrote down a few ideas. This was her sketch  of the card. I interpolated it the best I could! 😂

Everything fell into place easily after that! Not knowing exactly where I was going, I ran a 4.25" x 5.5" piece of white cards tock through my Big Shot with the embossing folder that comes with the cute Cat Chat set by Sizzix/Tim Holtz. I also used the stamps and dies that come with the set! I just picked two Distress Oxide ink colors that appealed to me and that I knew would blend well. I used Peacock Feathers and Picked Raspberry. I blended very lightly because I wanted a bit of a mottled look to add to the hot mess-ness. 😂

After taking care of the background, I stamped one of the cats from the set, as well as the little yarn ball, using Memento Tuxedo Black ink. I turned the cat into a grey tabby with alcohol ink markers, used the coordinating dies from the stamp set, and cut them out. I just got a Xyron sticker maker that I thought would be useful for adhering small pieces, where I usually have to finagle liquid glue into tight spaces. I was right! I couldn't get the yarn ball to go through, though. I did end up using liquid glue on that. I want to try the sticker maker with a lot of other items. 😊

I placed the cat and yarn ball in the center of the background, then got to work on the sentiments. They're from one of my favorite sets, Hero Arts Snarky Mix and Match Sentiments. I stamped them using Versafine ink and embossed them with clear embossing powder for some dimension. I adhered them to the card face with 1/4" foam squares, then finished it off with some Tonic Nuvo Crystal Drops in simply white to bring in some of the white from the sentiments. Finally, I adhered the whole card face to a pre-cut 4.25" x 5.5" base. 

And that's it for this crazy little cat card! I hope you enjoyed it. It's my first time entering a Simon Says Stamp challenge! It was a lot of fun and I hope to participate more!