Hang In There...Don't Go Bananas!

This was my first attempt at a double staircase card, and a shameful copy of a super cute card origninally created by a super creative blogging pal, Jenny of Crazy for Paper Crafting. When I first laid eyes on Jenny's "Let's Hang Out" card, I knew it would be just the perfect card to send to dd during exam time to cheer her up. Cute little monkey is from the Create A Critter cart. I changed the sentiment on the card to "Hang In There" to fit the occasion of dd's stressful week of studying for finals, using MTC and true type fonts LD Charming Bold and Arial for this.

I didn't have any of that cute Doodlebug nature walk paper Jenny used for her card, or for that matter, any forest themed papers at all. My card looked pretty much "bleh", and really needed something, so I added a couple of trees from the ZooBallo cartridge. Unfortunately, in order to be able to hang the vine in the trees, they had to be cut quite large, and as a result their leaves and branches hide the sentiment from full view. *Sigh*

Here's the "inside" sentiment I added to the back of my card. Smiling banana is also a Create A Critter cut.

One of the "big issues" I always have with these staircase type cards is how they tend to want to open up and flatten when I add a lot of die cuts and embellishments to them...

So I decided to add on strips of cardstock to the bottom on both sides of the card to prevent the card from opening more than I wanted. This seems to have done the trick!

Sent this together with her requested care package of Tomoe sakura arare ("gotta be Tomoe, mom!") to dd as she faces her scariest and final finals before she starts her year of rotations. "You can do it, babee!"