Playing along with Gallery Idol

I'm playing along with Gallery Idol again on Keren B's Flickr group.  The contestants' last challenge was based on "Around the House".  Keren used cotton buds, and Virginia used sticky notes. Aha, I thought: cocktail sticks! I would make a card featuring a venetian blind with a stamped pot plant on a window ledge. I could see it clearly in my head.  Found the cocktail sticks, chopped the pointy ends off, then realised I should have left the pointy ends on so that I could push them through the cord.  Duh!  More cocktail sticks (pointy this time), threaded through the cord, ends chopped off afterwards.


Funny how the images in your head don't always translate onto the card....

It looks more like a dodgy rope ladder.  Scrap that idea.  What else?  I know, bleach!  Out with the black card, out with the thick bleach that kills 99% of all household germs.  I can hear you screaming already - not the thick bleach!  I watered it down, but to no avail.  All I had to show for my efforts was a square of black card with a brownish scorch mark on it.  Not even worth taking a photo for you to laugh at.

So what now? Another lap round the kitchen cupboards but no inspiration, so I sat myself down at my workstation (dining table) to ponder, then I saw a shocking pink plastic bag poking out from my stash of goodies.  I chopped it up and cut out some flowers with Tim Holtz' Tattered Florals die, using about 6 layers for each flower. Gaudy yellow brad through the middle of each flower (no point trying to tone it down, eh?), bow tied from one of the handles of the bag, stuck onto a die-cut plant pot, and the trusty happy birthday stamp for stems.

I'm just glad I wasn't working to the same deadlines as those contestants!