Still Feeling the Monkey Love

I am still loving this monkey! And I think it will be great to make cards for my 2 (soon to be 3!) youngest nephews. This is one of those cards that started out one way and ended up different. Does that ever happen to you? Originally, I was making a card for one of the Dare to Get Dirty challenges. It was a sketch, and the focal image was an oval. Well, I had just seen the coolest scalloped circles made with the Coluzzle and the slit punch on Marilyn's blog, and I thought that would be cool to use on this card. So I got out my Coluzzle and cut an oval using the 3rd cutting line from the center. Then I put the slit punch in through the hole and punched all the way around. (Marilyn has pictures on her blog, so I didn't take pictures of that part.)
You can see in this photo that there is a little gap on the left side. I thought this might happen, so I started on the side of the oval so I could cover it up with a knot. If you look at the finished card, you can see that's exactly what I did, and you would never even know that gap is there! Whoohoo!! The oval on the right is cut using the 5th cutting line out from the center. I tried stamping the monkey on it, but I couldn't get it exactly like I wanted, so I ended up stamping the monkey and then cutting around him with the Coluzzle.
I watercolored the monkey and banana (both stamped with Basic Brown) with my watercolor crayons. Barely Banana was actually too light for the banana skin, so I used So Saffron and added a little More Mustard around the edge. I used Very Vanilla for the banana. The monkey was colored with Creamy Caramel, Close to Cocoa and Real Red. I used the cutter kit around the oval's edge and hit it with my Close to Cocoa Stampin' Spot.
I used Confetti White for the card base, topped with a Pacific Point layer followed by So Saffron Prints DSP with the banana stamped randomly in Close to Cocoa. I distressed the edges of the DSP just like I did the oval.
So then I hold my beautiful oval up against the card to try to decide what size the other sketch layers should be. That's when I discovered that my oval is WAY too big for the sketch! Well, I'd gone too far to turn back, so I figured out where to put the ribbon, adhered the oval, and punched the sentiment out with the word window punch.
I guess I can't complain because I like how the card came out, but I'm bummed that I didn't do the challenge. There are so many great ones over at SCS, and I just don't see how I will get them done. That's life, I guess!
Supplies (all SU): Stamps: Sock Monkey; Paper: Confetti White, Pacific Point, So Saffron Prints DSP; Ink: Basic Brown, Close to Cocoa; Accessories: aquapainter, watercolor wonder crayons, Coluzzle, slit punch, word window punch, Very Vanilla taffeta ribbon, cutter kit