Distress Inks + Inlaid Die Cutting (SSS Monday Challenge)

This week's Simon Says Stamp Monday Challenge is called Rock The Techniques. Yay! I love doing techniques! This is my first challenge, so here it goes!

Today I made a thank you card for my grandma- her all time favorite color is blue :)

I started out by making the background on a piece of 4.25"x 5.5" Strathmore watercolor paper.

I used a stencil from Memory Box called Texture Tessatina and added some Distress Inks over it using mini ink blending tools. The Distress Inks I used, from top to bottom are: Tumbled Glass, Broken China, Peacock Feathers, Salty Ocean, and Seedless Preserves. Then I sprayed the heck out of the top portion of the background with water so it would drip down and leave water marks. You know how rain looks when it's running down a window? That's the look I was going for. 

Next I did some die cutting: I used the Spring Showers Die Set from Lawn Fawn to cut out the cloud and the rain drops. I cut another stitched cloud out of some white chipboard (or super thick cardstock? I'm not really sure what it is, but I used it :P) and glued it down with some Multi Medium Matte slightly overlapping the cut-out cloud and right above the rain drops.

I cut the panel down a little bit, taking about a quarter of an inch off of each side and adhered it onto an A2 sized card made from Neenah Solar White 110 lb cardstock using some foam tape. Then I inked up a piece of scratch white cardstock with Peacock Feathers Distress ink, put some clear Wink of Stella over it, and heat embossed some clear embossing powder over that. I used the rain drop die again to cut the drops out of that scrap paper. I stuck the little rain drops into their coordinating cut-out spots with my Pick-Me-Up tool from Silhouette and used the Multi Matte Medium to stick them down to the card base behind the panel.

My card was looking like it was missing something, so I decided to add a sentiment. I used the Chalk Talk stamp set from Stampin' Up, stamped the "For You" onto that white chipboard with some VersaMark ink and sprinkled some silver tinsel embossing powder from Recollections over it. (The silver tinsel embossing looks way more glittery irl). I heat set it and then cut it out using my Circle Stackables dies from Lawn Fawn. Glued it down onto the card using -you guessed it- Multi Medium Matte and the card was done! 

Thanks for visiting!

-Erica