A Challenging Challenge / SSC #260 / My Challenge #26

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Hey y'all. Happy Tuesday! I hope you're having a good week so far. Sorry about no post yesterday. I had a long weekend. I spent 6 hours finishing up swaps Friday night, had a team get-together Saturday morning followed by DMB Saturday night (Amazing as always!), then I ended up babysitting all day Sunday and was sick yesterday.Whew! I need a vacay from my weekend. Lol.

So if you've followed me for any length of time you know a few things to be true and consistent about me (outside of the fact that I'm a little OCD when it comes to my stamping/crafting) (ok, a lot!), I'm a Scaredy Cat about trying new things (I sure did pick the right name), and I stick by my blog motto- "Just Try"
1- I'm trying to expand and grow my creativity by continually challenging my self i.e. weekly challenges, MDS, making my self do things that I find difficult like C&S etc.
2- I'm pretty honest when it comes to what I think about my work. If I'm not happy with it, I try to decide whether it's my OCD and quest for perfection that's marring my happiness, (you know...will someone else like this and I'm just being overly critical) or is it just an "ugly card". Luckily I don't have too many cards that I really dislike.
3- I show the good and the bad. In fact pretty much everything I create ends up here...sometimes it may take a while but it does. While I love seeing everyone else's beautiful creations, it's sometimes frustrating to only see "blog perfect" items. It seems like I'm in the rare percentage of people who turns out cards they're not happy with. I rarely see a post where the person says "Not sure I like this". I'm not saying I never see it, but I very rarely see it.
4- I feel like the purpose of my blog other than to grow as a designer is to (hopefully) inspire others. I have some blogs on my feed that are so over the top creatively, that I'm just look at it and go "Yep, never going to happen for me". So to that end I make sure I post cards like today's so that maybe if someone else is looking at all the "fabulous cards" and feeling overwhelmed they can see mine and remember that we all have good and bad creative days. Of course it goes back to my motto for this blog... Just try.

All things said, I'm not saying this is an "ugly card", definitely not sure I like it (but, I don't hate it), it's just not what I envisioned and that's the frustrating part. Often I look at a sketch and am able to figure out a plan. Every once in a while I look at a sketch and know exactly what I want and it ends up there. This one, the plan came together pretty quick, color combo, stamp set and when I put it together it just didn't look like it had in my mind.

Here's today's card-

Sketch Challenge Featuring Open Seas Stamp Set

And here's the sketch from Stamping 411-

First off, let me say that I love the sketch and my dis-satisfaction is with my interpretation of the sketch. I decided to step out of my comfort zone and try a "concept" driven card and I think that's where I failed (at least in my mind).
Here's how my thought process went-
1- The circle made me think of the compass in the Open Seas set (I originally had a scalloped circle behind it)
2- From there I thought about a "simple card" and decided the manifest would be simple for the open space behind the compass. The ship was an afterthought when I felt the card was really failing.
3- Follow me here with the concept- instead of the scalloped layer, I thought using my edgelet would create "the feeling of waves/water" it was after all being built around "The Open Seas" I edged this piece with some Island Indigo sponging and then lightly sponged over the piece to add some depth and to make it not such a contrast to the Island Indigo piece below it. I was hoping the Island Indigo Bakers Twine would also help to unify the two pieces.
4- When it didn't seem to be coming together, I removed the scalloped circle and added the fussy cut ship. I wish I had taken a picture of it then, but at that point I had already been working on this for over an hour and was getting tired.

Oh, well... I "just tried" even if it didn't turn out. The sad thing is in my mind, it worked out great . :'(

Here's the inside-

When I was looking for some Very Vanilla for the inside, I found a piece that already had the sentiment stamped in Soft Suede. I decided to use it and then just added the globe and ship. This is actually where I got the idea to try putting a ship on the front.

So, since I got my inspiration from the SSC, I'm going to submit it anyway. However, I imagine I'm going to go home tonight and "Just Try" again...hopefully with results that make me happier!

Well, that's all I have for you today (and isn't it enough). Hopefully this has inspired you to "Just Try" even when it seems like it's not working. Even though I'm not happy with today's card, at least I didn't give up. So I guess, that makes it a winner anyway. :)

Thanks so much for stopping by today. I hope you come back soon. (Trust me they're not all like this!)

Till next time-

Remember- Life is often more about the storms than the peace they seek to overwhelm. It's not about Waiting for the storm to pass, but Learning to Dance in the rain.

Be Safe,
Shan Pin It