Inspiration Challenge #1

I get inspired by the weirdest things. Maybe 'weird' is the wrong word. How about 'strange'? Yeah, I get inspired by the strangest things. One day when I took the Metro to work, I noticed the color combo in the striped shirt worn by the person sitting next to me. How many of you see SU colors in everyday things like shirts on innocent bystanders? I do not think I am alone here.

So in November of 2006 my parking situation changed at work and I now come and go out of a different side of the building. The first day I noticed this interesting picture at the end of the hallway on my floor:

I looked at this picture every day for over a year when I finally remembered to bring my camera to work and took this photo. (Please ignore all those trophies...it was a clandestine shot, so I pointed, clicked and ran.)

Each time I see it, I see what I think is Sage Shadow, Blush Blossom, and of course Black. I like the panes, and especially the black swirly stuff. Do you think that is a broken heart? Hmmm ...

Finally ... F I N A L L Y ... I dug up the photo and gave it the ole' college try last night, and this is what I managed to produce:

Recipe (All products by Stampin' Up!): Stamps - Embrace Life; Paper - Sage Shadow, Basic Black, Blush Blossom, Glossy White. Whisper White; Ink - Blush Blossom, Sage Shadow, Basic Black, Groovy Guava; Other - Versamarker, clear EP, blender pen, black gg ribbon.

'scuse me ... I smell roasting garlic, and I must go check on it before it burns ....

tick ... tock ... tick ... tock ...you can click here for some nice Hold music. If it does not play, I am sorry. If you want to stay on this site and just have the music play, then right-click on the link and select Open In New Window.

Okay, I'm back! Gotta love the convenience foods available in today's Megamarts. I bought a whole bag of already-peeled garlic cloves, and while I used some of it a little while ago to whip up some meatless sloppy joes, I had the rest of the bag left, so I roasted it. Yum!

Back to my card. I noticed the photo on the wall has some black grid lines in addition to the white ones, but I just did white this first time. I used a ruler and the skinny end of the Versamarker to make the grid lines on glossy white card stock, then I clear-embossed them. I sponged Blush Blossom and Sage Shadow over the grid lines and it did not stick to the embossing so you can still see the lines. This is actually my second attempt. First I tried alcohol with reinker and made a total mess. You can see some of it bleeding over the edges of the piece of white card stock. Since every piece of card stock has two sides, I just flipped it over and tried it without alcohol, and I like it a lot better. I also like the little bleeding spots on the edges. I do not think I could have done that if I had tried! I love a good mistake, don't you?

Then, as usual, I sat there and looked at it. And looked some more. Now what? But I was determined to pull this off at least once, so I tried to figure out how to get some black in there without overpowering the whole thing, when I looked over and saw my Embrace Life set sitting on the table next to me, still not put away. I have used all the stamps in that set except the flower, so I just reached over and grabbed it. How convenient!

I used a blender pen to color in the flower with Blush Blossom and Groovy Guava ink, then I mounted it on dimensionals to give it some pop. Then I looked at it some more. It really needed something black, but where? I thought about brads, but I opted for the black ribbon instead.

I think it has promise, but I'll probably play with it some more and come up with variations on a theme. Wanna play along? If so, just post a link to your creation in a comment so we can all see what you did.