Inspiration Challenge #31: Allison shirt

If you could only see the huge pile of inspiration ideas I have going right now... so much great stuff out there! That being said, today's piece doesn't even come from that pile. I was online looking for something at Nordstrom and randomly came across this shirt. I normally choose inspiration pieces with a little more going on, but I just couldn't get this one out of my head. If you click the link you can see it larger - the print is very cool.

I decided to make a Christmas card for my sample - and it features something else that stayed with me for days. A few days ago I needed to go to my nearby stamp shop and I happened to see this gorgeous Hero Arts Christmas background stamp. I mean, it was one of those times when I gasped. I was trying to be good and it didn't come home with me. But three days later I was still thinking about it. I took that as a sign that I should just go get it, and it seemed perfect for this challenge piece.

I first took a piece of basic gray cardstock and stamped the image in Versamark, then embossed with Ranger black super fine detail EP. The felt poinsettias are also from Hero Arts, and the combination of these with the stamp is a flat-out CASE from the sample the stamp store had out. I just loved it. The pack comes with poinsettias and leaves, including this shade of dark red. I matched it up with a random dark red cardstock from my stash and attached the poinsettias with Making Memories crystal brads.

I loosely used Beate's most recent sketch challenge - I think that was where I took a wrong turn. I didn't have much time, I tried to make the sketch work for my card but it didn't really, and then I had already attached everything and couldn't start over... I guess I'm just disappointed that this card I thought about for so many days didn't turn out better. And then I couldn't even get a decent photo of it!

Well, anyway, the finishing touches were the embossed Hero Arts sentiment, on a 1 1/4" circle punch and a black scalloped square punch with pierced corners, and strips of black and gray cardstock with red velvet ribbon. I had some gray textured cardstock handy from yesterday's flip album so I used that for the card base.

I hope you'll forgive me for an off week. ;) Sometimes good ideas just need more time than I have to give! Come and play along anyway - the SCS keyword this week is DSIC31. I'd love to see what you create!