Yarn Ball Anyone?

I've been thinking about making this card since last Friday, when I saw that this week's QKR Stampede challenge was Keep Your Eye On The Ball or Anything Goes. The challenge immediately had me thinking about a cat playing with balls of yarn. I didn't have time to stamp over the weekend and yesterday I got distracted by the National Bow Tie Day challenge, so I didn't get a chance to actually make the card until today. The good news is that waiting let me check out this week's color combo challenge on SCS and it was one that was (nearly) perfect. The colors were: soft suede, crumb cake, very vanilla and tranquil tide. I didn't have any tranquil tide so I substituted a piece of retired forest foliage card stock and a Bic permanent marker in For-Ever Green. I also used the sketch form last week's sketch challenge because why pile on another challenge, right? 

I started with a crumb cake card base which I stamped with the Sanded background stamp in crumb cake ink for some subtle texture. I added the strip of Forest Foliage card stock and a piece of twill tape. I stamped the basket and yarn images from the Basket Full of Fun set in Memento Tuxedo Black ink on very vanilla card stock and colored them with crumb cake marker for the basket and For-Ever Green marker for the yarn. I stamped the basket image again on a scrap piece of very vanilla card stock and fussy cut just the top of the basket and the two handles, coloring both with my soft suede marker. I glued the fussy cut piece over the matching image on the basket and punched two 1/16" holes where the handles met the top, decorating them with two bronze brads. I used my aquapainter and crumb cake and soft suede ink to wash a surface at the bottom of and around the basket. Finally I cut the card stock with a framelit from the circles assortment and cut a soft suede mat with a framelit from the Starburst assortment.

On a separate piece of very vanilla card stock I stamped the sentiment, cat, and several yarn balls from the cat chat set in Memento Tuxedo Black ink. I colored the cat using crumb cake and soft Suede ink and my blender pen. I colored the yarn balls with the For-Ever Green marker. I die cut the cat and yarn balls with the corresponding framelits and I used a framelit from the Everyday set to make the word balloon for the sentiment (I actually fussy cut the top of the word balloon because it was a little too big) and sponged the edges with crumb cake ink. I attached the cat and a couple of yarn balls to the stamped very vanilla circle with dimensionals. I cut off the circle at the side as dictated by the sketch and attached it to the card base over the other layers with dimensionals. As a final step, I colored a piece of white baker's twine with the For-Ever Green Bic marker and looped it around the front of the card to make it look like a meandering piece of yarn, attaching it with liquid glue.

I think the card turned out really well. I love the image of the cat getting caught with his paw in the yarn basket and still managing to casually ask "What's up?"

Recipe:

Paper: very vanilla, crumb cake, soft suede, forest foliage
Ink: Crumb cake, Memento tuxedo black. SU crumb cake and soft suede markers, For-Ever Green Bic permanent marker
Stamps: Basket Full of Fun, Sanded, Tim Holtz Cat Chat from Sizzix
Accessories: SU Circles and Starburst framelit assortments, Sizzix Everyday and Cat Chat framelits, Twill Tape, metallic basics mini circle brads by Making Memories, baker's twine, aquapainter, blender pen, stampin' sponge