Atmospheric Phenomena and Hotel Inspiration

I did a mini Road Trip to the Midwest this past weekend, and I found myself surrounded by inspiring images. But first, let's discuss the Atmospheric Phenomena part of this post.

When I drive from Maryland to Michigan, I am going West. I leave in the morning, and since the sun rises in the East, it is usually behind me and not an issue until after lunch. Interstate 70 goes in a generally WNW direction between Maryland and Pennsylvania, so why, at 10:00 am, was the sun to my LEFT!?! Whazzup with that?!?!?! I had to put my sun visor to my left at 10:00 am! Lessee ... driving West, so to my Left is South, or if I am going more NW, then to my left is SW. Not East! The only thing I could think of was it had something to do with the tilt of the Earth at this time of year, so maybe the sun is not in the East East in the morning any more. Maybe? Anyone out there that knows the answer to this, please let me know!

So anyway, somewhere on the Ohio Turnpike I had to pull over and take this picture:


Okay, so I will not be nominated for any photographic awards for this shot, but I was trying to take the photo out of the driver-side window, in between the whoosh zoom of many, many, many semi's. I would have gotten out of the car like I usually do on my road trips, but not this time. The whoosh zoom's were too close together to safely open the car door and still expect it to be attached to the car for the remainder of my trip. But let me tell you about the sky. The clouds were a swirl, and on the left, where it looks sorta orange in the picture, the colors were really vibrant reds and oranges - it was gorgeous! You will just have to trust me on that one. :-)

Moving on to the Hotel Inspiration part of the post. After I checked in to the hotel (a Hampton Inn, in case you were wondering) I found myself needing to take pictures of things ... like the carpet in the halls and the wallpaper in the room.

This is a shot of the paper in the bathroom:

and this is the card that came out:

Recipe: Stamps - Weathered bg, Baroque Motifs, Fancy Flexible Phrases; Paper - Sage Shadow, Very Vanilla, Creamy Caramel; Ink - Creamy Caramel, Sage Shadow, Sage Shadow Craft; Other - Sage Shadow marker, Twill, SAMJ.

When I first saw the wallpaper, I thought about the now-retired On Safari background stamp, which I do not own, and a medalion stamp from the Baroque Motifs set, or one very much like it. I ended up using the Weathered background image with the medalion ... from Baroque Motifs! It is kinda difficult to see, but I scored the Vanilla card stock to give me a grid for placing the medalion with the Stamp-A-Ma-Jig. It worked great. Well, remember, I am the Crooked Stamper, so for me it helped a little. For other people it would be great.

Moving on, this is shot of the carpet in the hallway:

and this, well ... this is an example of what can happen when I have too much time on my hands:

Recipe: Stamps - Tres Chic bg; Paper - Certainly Celery, So Saffron, Always Artichoke, Not Quite Navy: Ink - Always Artichoke; Other - Versamarker, Cutter Kit (for the curved pieces), Corner Rounder punch, clear EP, Vanilla gg ribbon, misc eyelets.

The eyelets on the smaller piece of Artichoke looked okay - just for some character, but then I got a little carried away and put some eyelets on the right-hand panel, then got a hair-brained idea that I could kind of lace them together. Uh-uh. Then I searched and searched for a sentiment that would work, and I finally opted for the 'Believe' word on the Tres Chic stamp since I'd already used it as the background. Coincidentally, that part of the background stamp is the whole reason I bought it in the first place, but I had no idea inking it up would be such a challenge. I ended up using the Versamarker to ink up only the part I wanted, and, well, it finally came out passable, but this is not one I'd try to mass-produce.

Ya know, the more I look at this card, the more I dislike it ('hate' is such a strong word.) There's too much going on, and I guess I just lost focus. I had good intentions, but in the end I failed in the delivery. Please feel free to link to this card as an example of what not to do with carpet inspiration. I think I will try again, maybe using just the colors, as that part of this attempt seems to be okay.

Oh, well. Off to try again.