Hang In There - Today's Pause For Thought Card

Today's card is for this week's Colour Me...! card challenge where we have are working with a subtle palette of autumnal browns:

I also decided to use the rather unusual sketch layout over at Create With Connie and Mary for my card this week. Here is my card:

I used Soft Suede as my card base and layered a piece of paper from the Trim The Tree DSP stack at an angle across the bottom of the card. For the main image, I used the tree from the Nuts About You hostess set and having inked it up with my Soft Suede and Cajun Craze Stampin' Up! markers, stamped in out onto very Vanilla cardstock and partially cut out using my circle framelits, fussy cutting the leaves so that they would overhang the edge of the circle. I deliberately created a streaky finish on the tree truck to make it look a little bit like tree bark. I stamped both the sentiment and little creature (is it a possum? I'm really not sure what he's supposed to be, but he's cute all the same!) in Versamark and heat embossed them with Early Espresso embossing powder. I fussy cut the animal and adhered him over the tree so that he looked like he was 'hanging in there'. I finished with some strips of Early Espresso and a piece of retired Early Espresso taffeta ribbon to complete my card.

I made this card for a female friend who is having a tough time of it recently and I wanted to send her a little something to brighten her day and just let her know I was thinking of her. I really liked the finished card, then I read on a blog somewhere this week that it was the author's view that a thinking of you/get well card should always be in brighter colours to lift the recipients mood. As someone who was entirely happy with her card until I read this, and who also loves bright colours, I'm now having second thoughts  - maybe I should remake it with something less subtle; what do you think? Either way, I still love today's card!

Feel free to leave a comment on today's card, before hopping over to check out the amazing cards by the rest of the Colour Me...! team:

Nuts About You Clear-Mount Stamp Set	Many Marvelous Markers	Big Shot Die-Cut Machine	Big Shot Magnetic Platform	Circles Collection Framelits Dies
Very Vanilla A4 Card Stock	Soft Suede A4 Card Stock	Early Espresso A4 Card Stock	Embossing Buddy	Versamark Pad
Heat Tool - Uk Plug	Stampin' Emboss Powder Early Espresso	Trim The Tree Designer Series Paper Stack