Not quite right...

I really liked the simplicity of this card I found on Pinterest and tracked back to My Paper Secret.  The colors were beautiful and clean and the card was elegant in its simplicity.  But unfortunately, it didn't translate well when I tried my own hand at it.  I have a stash of pre-made card bases, but none that seemed quite right except this green one.  I loved how it looked with this scrap of pink DCWV paper from my stash of scraps from other projects.  I tried several options for the center button:  green, white, blue, pink, but the one that looked the best to me was this yellow.

Where I think it all went wrong is in the stem and sentiment.  I'm not very artistic.  I can't draw a straight line without a ruler and I can't draw a curved line without a french curve.  So I drew one in pencil to give me an idea of the right balance of curve.  Slight problem, I didn't like the first curve so I tried to erase it, but I got a smudge on the card.  Sigh... 

So then I find the right curve, but when I went back to add my green stem, I couldn't quite get all the pencil erased.  It's like it's actually under the ink.  I added the sentiment from my Inkadinkado All Occasions set in Green Galore Stampin' Up ink to run across like leaves as in the inspiration piece, but I really should have used a darker color.  It's just too close in color to the rest.  Then when I was really being OCD about the still visible pencil line, I managed to erase a bit of my sentiment in my zeal to erase the pencil marks.  Well double sigh to that...  I was able to fix it a bit by coloring in with my stem pen, but it just really didn't quite come out  like I had it all envisioned.  Oh well, it's the thought that counts.