I love being able to see if I can do something that I previously thought was impossible.  I never thought I could complete a marathon, but I’ve done it twice.  I certainly never thought I could eliminate sugar from my diet and live, but I did and not only did I survive, but I’m thriving.  In both these cases, I didn’t just wake up one day and achieve those results.  It took a daily commitment of making good choices and over time I was able to reach my goals.

Today, I’m talking about a different kind of challenge.  This is a creative challenge.  I follow many paper crafting blogs (and you know I love blogs) and one in particular, Mama Elephant, posted a Photo Inspiration Challenge for the month of April.

The challenge is to use the inspiration of this photo along with a Mama Elephant stamp to create a card.

I was drawn to the colors in the photo, particularly the blue/green.  My first creation (you can enter as many times as you want until May 5th) began with the blue/green color.  I chose a mini craft bag with a blue/green background to stamp my sentiment, “just wanted to say thank you“, from the Many Thanks stamp set.  I found a sage green mini chevron card to place in the craft bag and also stamped “I’m so grateful” from that same set.  All my stamping was done with Versamark ink and white embossed.  From there I chose a pink chevron cardstock to highlight the pink in the roses.  The bold pink against the soft blue/green is a striking color combination.  I stitched the pink chevron print to the sage card base, glued the craft bag to the pink chevron and put the sage mini chevron card into the bag.  To finish off the card, I found an oval label which I placed on the front of the bag and placed a heart brad on top of that.

This isn’t the card I envisioned when I first looked at the inspiration photo, but I’m delighted with the results.

Supplies:

Mama Elephant Stamps – Many Thanks
Stampin’ Up Cardstock – sage shadowStudio Calico – pink chevron
Amy Tangerine – Yes Please – mini sage chevron
Andrienne Looman – Webster’s Pages – Mini Craft Bag
Studio Calico – Neat Things by Hello Forever – Oval Label
Recollections – Heart Brad
Tsukineko – VersaMark Ink
Hero Arts – White Embossing Powder
Stampin’ Up – Heat Embossing Tool

Hey mom- we had a challenge the other day trying to fit all three of us on the couch.  We were a bit squished, but we were also determined.