Taking a breather

It's been totally crazy here. Tomorrow is Ben's birthday party - I'm sure more will be forthcoming about that - and I've been madly working on custom orders and my Etsy shop. And somehow in the midst of this I'm supposed to finish Christmas shopping and get the kids' photos taken and send out Christmas cards and pack for our holiday travel and... and... and...

I took a little break from the madness to make a card for a friend. I wanted it to be very sweet and girly, and this is what I came up with. The sketch is Jen's and it was super fun.

I started out with the patterned paper by KI Memories. That led me to an unusual color combination, perhaps - pink pirouette, pale plum, and close to cocoa. I used my ticket corner punch, which recently came out of hiding (i.e., I found it under the mountain of stuff on my craft table). The stamp is by Inkadinkado and is stamped in cocoa ink on pink cardstock.

I couldn't decide what to put for my big embellishment and finally decided on a flower. This one from the Basket & Blooms die is sooo nice. I really should use this die more often! I used the pale plum for the flower and then added a pink button from JoAnn's with some hemp twine. I added a strip of pink pirouette ribbon and popped up the flower and sentiment with glue dots.

What do you think? It's not exactly my usual style, is it? It was fun to step outside my fallbacks and try something different. I hope my friend loves it!