A Three-Pipe Problem

I couldn't resist these lovely wooden Sherlock Holmes themed buttons when I saw them at the Make It Show, and the current challenge at The Male Room, which is Wood, was the perfect opportunity to use them.

As well as his famous address and his deerstalker cap, Holmes was well known for his pipe and his violin (and for being an opium addict, but I really didn't have any suitable stash for that.... I suppose I could have stamped a few poppies!) which I have stamped randomly over the card. The pipe isn't the kind he would have used then, but it was the nearest I could find among my stamps.

I had in mind this snippet of paper from the docrafts Heritage Press collection as a backing panel for the buttons, but when I arranged them on it they didn't stand out well enough, so I found a snippet of dark blue wider than the check, and arranged them up the side of it. This time they seemed too disjointed from the check, so I experimented and finally decided to have them slightly overlapping the check, but enough on the blue to show them off properly.

A couple of sentiments and the pipe embellishment also came from the Heritage Press collection. I've had this set for several years and am now right down to the beam ends of it. I find it incredibly useful for masculine cards and will probably replace most of the elements when they are finally used up.

I'm also popping into the Snippets Playground with this card.