Extreme Card Makeover

Inspired by Sandy's weekly segment on OWHtv, I did an Extreme Card Makeover of my own today. I had picked up some sheets of soccer ball and grass PP by Paper Pizzaz a few weeks ago and knew they'd make excellent non-girly cards.

Then I made a card. I wonder why I even grabbed the adhesive on this one. There is no focal point, the pieces don't quite "go" together. In short, far from my best work.



The second card is getting somewhere. I changed colors for the sentiment, used the shadow, and put a layer behind the soccer balls. This card is OK, pulled together even, but not exciting.



The third card is the best I made. I decided the Sizzix lettering was half of the problem, so I grabbed some stamps instead. I stamped onto the green, so I ended up keeping the green/black sentiment combo but swapped out which color would be the background. It's also hard to read text that's vertical as the first two cards were, so I went back to horizontal and added an exclamation point for emphasis. I matted the sentiment on black to mimic the mat behind the soccer balls. And then I remembered one of the reasons I got the paper- it is so easy to punch out one ball for an accent. I did that, grabbed another black mat, and glued it down. This is a card I'm happy with.



Here are all three versions together for comparison's sake. Do you have any suggestions for version 4 of this card? I have plenty more paper and I'll be thrilled to post a newer version based on your suggestions!