Inspiration Challenge

I've seen all sorts of different blogs that do Inspiration Challenges as a way to spark creativity. Basically, you take some sort of picture, object, advertisement, etc...and incorporate elements of it into a card or scrapbook page. So when I won this SUPER-cute hand towel at Bunco last month, I thought it would be perfect for an Inspiration Challenge here on my blog!

This picture doesn't do the colors any justice! The hand-towel is Soft Sky, the ric rak at the bottom is Certainly Celery, the stitching is Chocolate Chip, and the button flowers are Ruby Red, Cameo Coral, Groovy Guava, and Apricot Appeal.

Now, that is A LOT of color to try and incorporate into a card - especially if you aren't using patterned paper. So when I created my card that was inspired by this hand-towel, I narrowed it down to Soft Sky, Chocolate Chip, Certainly Celery, Apricot Appeal, and Ruby Red.

Here's my card (and YES, I stitched every bit of it by hand!!):

The main card front is Soft Sky. The Whisper White panel at the bottom was pierced with the Mat Pack and a piercing tool. Then I went back and hand-stitched the zig-zags with a needle and embroidery floss. I didn't have any ric rak that matched this color scheme, so I tied a piece of Chocolate Chip 5/8" grosgrain ribbon across the center of the panel. Then I glued a strip of scalloped Certainly Celery cardstock to the top of the panel and a thin strip of Apricot Appeal cardstock to the bottom of the panel.

Next, I stamped three different flower images (2 from Bodacious Bouquet and 1 from Big Pieces) on to the card front with my VersaMark pad. I sprinkled white embossing powder over the stamped images and then heated them with the heat tool. After the flowers were embossed, I used my Bodacious Bouquet Classy Brass template to pierce the stems from the center of each flower to the mid-point of the card. Again, I picked up my needle and thread and hand-stitched the stems with dark brown embroidery floss. I used a glue dot to attach buttons to the center of each flower. And last, but not least, I mounted the stitched and matted Whisper White panel on to the front of the card, making sure that it just barely overlapped the bottom of the stitched stems!

This kind of challenge was actually quite fun! You can use all sorts of different elements from the original image...the color combination, layout, embellishments - the possibilities are endless! If you have a spare sec and want to try out this little challenge, send me a link to your card (or e-mail me a pic). I'd love to see what you come up with!!!