Feathers and patterned pp?

I don't do patterned paper. It just doesn't look right for me. Love it on other people's work but I'm gradually learning not to buy the stuff because I just can't make it look right.

So over on Crafts by Carolyn the current Create a Card challenge is certainly challenging for me. It's a recipe:

0 big blooms

1 feather

2 brads

3 gems

4 patterned papers

Eek! Four papers?!

After shuffling stuff around for an eternity, I finally used an idea that the lovely Lythan posted as a Valentine's class at Scrapstars.

I punched squares from papers that came in a 'baby' sort of pad and made them into a patchwork heart so my penchant for a plain background went unchallenged. The feather got split down the middle so the heart could take flight and I faked some stiching round the edge with a map pin and a gel pen because it didn't look quite finished somehow.

Still not quite sure about it!