Too late to stay?

Last night was just wonderful - a dear co-worker is retiring at the end of the month and a small group of us went out to dinner to celebrate. There were plenty of laughs (and no, they weren't all due to the copious amounts of wine) and lots of reminiscing. Anyway, I made this card for the soon-to-be retiree:

I chose Mo Manning's "White Rabbit (Late)" because of his somewhat tired & downtrodden appearance. I also love the time theme since it always seems that something looked forward to will never arrive. I chose very neutral colours (after the card is for a man) when I coloured the rabbit. I cut him out using a Spellbinders die and then inked the edges for a distressed look.

To make the card, I started by stamping pocket watches randomly on a white card blank. The stamps are part of a Recollections set "About Time" that I picked up at Michaels awhile back and I used brown distress ink to keep a vintage/aged look. I inked the card edges and also lightly sponged distress ink over the card to tone down the brightness of the white.


The panels are created with Basic Grey, "manilla basics" matted on green. I love how the manilla paper has text & drawings all over it (so suggestive of paperwork). I inked the edges and added brass brads to the top and bottom of each panel. The sentiment is cut out with a Spellbinders die, inked around the edges and then popped up. The sentiment inside reads "to ask you to stay?".
 
For the final touch, I dissassembled some really ugly ribbon to rescue the brown twine. I wrapped three pieces of the twine around the image and then popped the entire thing up.
 
I'm really proud of this card - I worked quite hard at the shading on the rabbit and I'm thrilled with the overall vintage appearance of the card. Of course, the best complement of all was when my friend told me it was perfect for him!
 
Challenges:
Paper Sundaes - a change of season (moving from worklife to retirement)
Pollycraft Challenge - it's a fairytale (does "Alice in Wonderland" count as a fairy tale? I think so)
Little Red Wagon - something old, something new (he'll kill me, but the recipient is the something old [well, the twine is also really old], the digi image is new)
Papertake Weekly - 3 of a kind (3 panels, 3 pieces of twine, 2 sets of 3 brads)
Tuesday Throwdown - 3 of something (3 panels ...)
Craftalicious - anything goes
Stamping Vacation - no images that start with an "S"
Midnight Madness - sketch