Mischievous Little Kitty

Hey everyone!! Happy Monday!
Are you all recovered from the holiday last week? I really miss having big Thanksgiving get togethers with the family...or even friends.
We tend to end up spending holidays alone now since we don't live near family and friends are scarce. But it allows us to focus on our relationship and grow closer together.

With all this holiday stuff going on, it's slowly been getting me more and more into the Christmas mood. I'm still struggling a little with it, not sure why...maybe I'm just not ready for the year to be over already. But it's growing on me...and after getting our Christmas decorations up this weekend, I feel a little bit more giddy for Christmas.

I recently won a gift certificate to Newton's Nook. That is a stamp company that totally speaks to my heart. I can't get enough of all the adorable little kitty stamps they have! Narrowing down my selection was incredibly difficult, but in the end I decided on the Newton's Antics set because it offered a little more versatility in being able to stretch those images for multiple occasions. Today's card shows exactly that:

I know that Newton's Nook has a stamp set with an image included like this one, with the lights wrapped around the kitty. But since I don't have that set, I used what I did have to create the image. And I totally love it! I colored the little kitty up like our darling Ezio because he is just the kind of cat that would get himself wound up in the Christmas lights :)

After coloring in all the little bulbs, I covered each one with a little bit of shimmer and a good coating of glossy accents. It turned out exactly as I wanted it to! Love it!

The rest of the card was just layered together with some coordinating papers. I used a border die from the Mama Elephant Borderlines Trio set for the bottom border, and heat embossed my sentiment in white to help it pop.

To help carry out the red, I coated some white enamel dots with a few layers of red stickles and let them dry before adding them to my project. The cream background was stenciled over with a matching vanilla color in a checker pattern...I didn't want it to be just a plain color and the subtle pattern works really well, though you can't hardly see it in the picture.

Thanks so much for stopping by!
On a side note, I've added some new cards to my Etsy shop! You can click "Here" to go straight there, or click on the My Etsy Shop tab up at the top to get a quick peak at the thumbnails of the cards. <3

I'd like to enter this mischievous kitty card into the following challenges:
2 Cute Ink #120-Pet Theme
Addicted to Stamps and More #123-Holiday
Deconstructed Sketch #178
Fab n Funky #239-Anything Goes w/Die Cuts
Newton's Nook Inky Paws #16-Christmas
Ooh La La #170-Christmas
Sentimental Sundays #235-Lots of Layers
Simon Says-Anything Goes
Totally Gorjuss #264-Christmas Animal