Lovely card Ellie, could you not go over the stem if you feel you ought to. I love the flowers twining up from the bottom too, very pretty. I sometimes find my corner chomper doesn't cut evenly and have to make sure it has been emptied and sometimes I turn the card over and cut it again. What do you use to do your corners? Doesn't having the embossed background just give the card that added something, a bit of texture really if there is a lot of blank space. I often find when something doesn't look right it just needs the background paper to be embossed. That's a lovely folder too.