A Whimsical Ornament

The card below was inspired by three separate Operation Write Home posts: this week's Stars and Stamps challenge to "do something round" from Robyn's Fetish, the Virtual Card Making challenge to do a paper piecing card, and Sandy's blog post about strip cards.

I played with a number of paper combinations before I came up with this one. The patterned paper is from Caboodle's Deck the Halls kit and the sentiment is a Best Creation's peel-off-sticker. Finishing touches include a hand-drawn hook, a shimmery ribbon, 4 gems, and a little stickling. The natural affinity for odd-numbered things entered into the ribbon/ornament/sentiment arrangement, as well as the choice of 1 and 3 gems. I went with 1 gem at the top -- with the larger bow -- and 3 gems at the bottom -- with the smaller sentiment -- as a way of striking a balance of elements. Finally, the 3-D glue dots nicely raised the ornament, but created a shadow when the card was scanned.

I'm thinking this would make a nice card for family and friends since my cards for OWH have already been planned out -- and in some cases, completed. However, if I manage to master the fork bow, a few of these might make their way into my next OWH shipment.

This card's design is a little out-of-the-ordinary for me. I'd love to hear what folks think about it.