Unlooked for inspiration

Well, actually, I'm lying.  I was looking for inspiration but it didn't come in the form that I thought it would.  I spend many an hour trawling through the internet visiting various craft sites and wandering through challenge blogs trying to get my creative ideas kick started.  I have, in my favourites list, several sites with sketch challenges on them, colour challenges, themed challenges etc.  I do occasionally even enter the challenges.  More often than not I'll dabble a bit but not post an entry -either because I forgot to take a picture or because, by the time I've done my card, the challenge has moved on.

Two of my favourite challenges are on Splitcoaststampers.  Monday has a Clean and Simple Challenge and Wednesday has a Sketch Challenge.  This week's Clean and Simple was 'Gardens'.  You just had to upload a garden themed card that was clean and simple.  Unfortunately, I wasn't inspired.  I'm not really a garden person.  I'm fine when occasionally dragged out to sit in it with a glass of something on the patio but I'm not a gardener and I rarely have time to sit.  If I attempt to craft in the garden my papers usually blow all over the place and I lose patience.  Anyway, I did carry on and have a look at the design samples - which is where the inspiration hit me.  Toni's sample (which you can see  here) was the inspiration.  I loved the layout of the card and was struck by how versitile it was.  It got me thinking.  How many different cards could I make using this layout?

OK, what I was also thinking was 'what on earth am I going to post on this blog thing now that I've started it' and I thought it might be interesting to show you what I've come up with.  So, here are 4 samples of what I've been doing this week - using Toni's layout of course.

I wasn't sure whether to post this one or not.  It's not usually may thing.  I have die cuts but don't use them

this one is for a lady who'd asked for a turquiose wedding card

I'm afraid that none of the cards will do for entering in the challenge as they aren't garden themed and only two of them are stamped but I had fun making them and, considering that they are all based on the same basic layout, they all look very different. 

Thanks for reading.

Love Dawn x