faux-framed evergreen adventure

I have this fabulous stamp set that up until now was unused; I thought of it right away when I saw the Evergreen prompt at The Paper Players.  It didn't take long to think of the faux frame from Technique Time Tuesday as a great way to spotlight it, either.  But it took two evenings to make these two cards, and neither of them turned out quite the way I envisioned.  Let me show you the one that comes closest, and I'll tell you my tale:

stamp set - Special Season; ink - Garden Green, Versamark; Stampin' emboss powder - Clear, Silver; card stock - Garden Green; Silver 1/8" ribbon; Big Shot with Apothecary Accents framelits; sponge dauber

First, thinking of sky, I chose to do the faux frame in Pool Party.  The tree trunk seemed "wrong" in green, so I colored it, but then the decorations needed to be colored as well.  I had already decided to use the little bough stamp as a frame around the edge of the card, but couldn't decide on a base color that would combine well with green boughs and the Pool Party "sky", so I set the whole thing aside and started over with this monochrome scheme.  By the time I got the bough frame and the faux frame done it was LATE in the evening.  It seemed like a good idea to heat emboss the tree and sentiment, but that meant the rest of the card front needed to be really dry, so I gave up and attempted to get some sleep by *not* thinking about which embossing powder colors might work best...

This evening I stamped the tree with Garden Green (for better color intensity than Versamark) and quickly clear-embossed it.  I removed the paper frame while trying to decide on a color for the sentiment.  I wasn't as careful as I could have been, and created the "embellishment opportunity" (in a non-crafting household, that *may* be known as a mistake) which is now hidden under ribbon, so the sentiment color was decided for me. 

Meanwhile the colored version was still on my crafting table, and I still need about two dozen more cards, so I couldn't just store it in the bin of "bits that will be useful later".  Although I was still struggling with the unusual color combination I had self-imposed, I pressed on:

stamp set - Special Season; ink - Garden Green, Pool Party, Real Red; Stampin' Write markers - Crushed Curry, Real Red; card stock - Coastal Cabana, Crushed Curry, Naturals White; punch - full Heart; Big Shot with Apothecary Accents framelits; sponge dauber, Stampin' Dimensionals

Who knew stamping could be so difficult? By now, I've lost track of my initial vision; I probably need some blog and Pinterest surfing time!