May 27 Sunday Morning Challenge

I firmly believe that challenges are the fuel of creativity. Not that making a card "from Scratch" and developing your own layout, color combination and stamp combination is not creative, but it can lead one to make "safe" choices. Pretty soon, all of our cards start to look the same (at least that's true for me). So I look for challenges to force me out of my comfort zone and really make me stretch creatively. And I think that's just what this week's challenge will do.

I started off this morning thinking that I would like to use a triangle somewhere on the challenge card, because for some reason I tend to avoid triangles in my layouts. I then thought It might be fun to go "geometric" and add in some circles. To me, these small circles lend themselves well to the small images in the mini mates set, so that will be our challenge set today (thought if you don't want to use the circles and would like to use other shapes or embellishments and use the stamps somewhere else, that's fine). And because that set has lots of sentiments, I'm only going to allow the option to use of 1 additional stamp for a background.

For the colors we'll be staying n the earth elements family today , with old olive, ruby red and more mustard + an optional neutral. And here's the real kicker -- you may not use any embellishments or tools that are not available in the 2006-2007 Stampin' Up! Idea Book and catalog or the Stampin' Up! 2007 spring mini catalog.

So come on, Ladies, it's time to stretch! Post links to your cards in comments to this post or send me the picture via e-mail (stampwithdiane@comcast.net) so I can upload it here. The first person to post their card and send me their snail mail address will get my challenge card as a prize. It's not made yet, so it could be very hideous and not much of a prize, but just pretend it's worth a small fortune and start creating! :-) Enjoy!