Essentials by Ellen Sketch Challenge

I'm here with a card for the newest sketch challenge at Ellen Hutson! You can win a $50 gift card for entering, so be sure to check it out! Here's the sketch:

I made mine into a 4.25x4.25 square card so my proportions are a little different. I let the focus be on the cirle element by including my image and used the berries as the heart element on the bottom right of the circle.

I started by cutting a white circle using one of the dies in the Alpine Window Die set. I stamped Mondo Holly onto it, using Memento Tuxedo Black ink and then coloured it with Copics. I didn't do any shading or blending (and it felt so strange!) and used almost-but-not-quite traditional colours of teal and pink. I popped up a few berries, using the matching dies.

I created a textured background by blending cool gray copics over it, and then dotting it with a colorless blender.

I stamped my sentiment with Versamark ink and embossed it with Wow! Silver Metallic embossing powder. I cut it to a narrow strip and and placed it where it would fit between the popped up berries. This became my guide for where the gap in the background panels would be.

But before that, I backed my focal panel onto another, slightly-larger circle, whose edges I coloured with the darkest pink Copic marker.

I did a bit of math to figure out what size each of my panels had to be, trimmed them down and popped them up before gluing my focal panel on top.

I used: