Rocking Horse Hallmark Scrapbook Challenge

Did you ever have a card that conspired against you? Well let me tell you this one was it! I won't bore you with all of the details, but it came THIS CLOSE to ending up in the circular file at least a dozen times. It turned out okay, but let me tell you that there were no intentions of the tree being filled with the Martha Stewart branch punch. The base was welded in Design Studio using a rectangle from Plantin Schoolbook and the shadow versions of the tree, and rocking horse from Joys of the Season, the teddy bear from Christmas solutions and another rectangle from PS to represent a present. (Sorry the inside is posted first but originally I hadn't taken a pic with the card open and when added I it to the post there it went and honestly, I'm too tired to change it. LOL) It all fell apart when I cut the regular versions of the same images and the tree (or 3/4 of it due to the welding) looked funky. I cut off the curly cue side branches but that looked worse. I tried another paper, again, yuck. I really liked the base paper pattern so I thought maybe it would be okay just leaving it as sort of a patterned background but when I finished embellishing the rocking horse and bear the tree looked ridiculous. Nothing left to do but start punching, and punching, and punching. My arthritis started kicking in so it is not nearly as full as some of the beauties on the Cricut message board but it will have to do. The star of this show was supposed to be the rocking horse after all. He did get a floss mane and tail and an embellished saddle and bridle. The lovely peel off corners are from my friend B-bug on the Cricut message board and the sentiment is a rub on which should have been matted and popped but I was ready to let this one go. Me and my big ideas! LOL I'm just happy to have completed another challenge! Bummer, even the pictures aren't great because I was losing the natural light, and I took them twice. Update! I decided to enter this card in Kiki's vintage Christmas challenge and I won! Yahoo!