So I have this friend, Alisha (who has been COOKING UP A STORM on her blog lately), and was the brains behind the Fantabulous Girlfriends Swap ages ago, and I was telling her that my Creative Muse has been AWOL….. well it appears that my Creative Muse has been visiting Alisha up in Oregon for the past who knows how long & has been conspiring with Alisha’s Creative Muse (see her blog)… lol! I was complaining to Alisha about this little phenomenon…. and she challenged me to a “swap”. She said, “a good challenge will help you find your Creative Muse…. and think outside your box (ok Alisha… just send her home now… play date is over…)” THEN she made ME come up with the challenge… LOL!

Here’s what the challenge was:

There were three guidelines to this challenge:

1. Create a card using Papertrey Ink stamps.
2. Use BUSY ribbon.
3. No Bows allowed: meaning do something different with the ribbon than just tying a bow. ( I had to throw the no bow thing in there because it seems that’s what everyone is doing lately… a cute little bow/knot bow tied off to the side of the card…)

I love challenges (sorta… like Alisha said, it’s a love/hate thing going on)… they make me think outside of my box and stretch my brain a little, and sometimes my Creative Muse returns from her vacations. Alisha informed me that we will be doing this once a week. (YIKES, help!) It’s her turn to come up with the challenge and then we will create a card and post it on Monday night/Tuesday morning… I might have to talk to her about the days cuz my Mon night got suddenly wonky last night.

If you’d like to join us in this challenge, feel free to post a link (use tiny URL to make it post friendly) to your card in the comments section of this post. We’d love to see what you come up with 🙂

Here’s the card. I took the photo at a wonky angle and made the background black & white in Photoshop Elements so the card would pop off.

{Click on photo to view larger}

Supplies Used:
Papertrey Ink “It’s a Celebration” stamp set & Berry Sorbet CS, Berry Sorbet Pallet Ink
CTMH Sweet Leaf CS, White CS, Honey Ink, Silver Brad
Ranger’s Stickles – Fruit Punch
Offray Rick Rack
Ribbons by American Crafts

PS.. my paper lines are off a bit.. I need to peel the card front off and trim the PTI Berry Sorbet paper a bit… will do that a little later today after work. (Extra day today… It’s flower order time!)