Bon Voyage card

I got a few new stamps in the last few weeks and I've been itching to try them out.  So I decided to make a card for a sketch challenge over at the Paper Players blog.  Their sketch was this:

I wanted to be a bit different...so I sketched a few alternate ideas for the focal square.  But I kept on getting stuck with the scale of things - and I was trying to use scraps of my paper and my new stamps.  Needless to say, I got a bit frustrated and just started to stamp.  Sadly, I had a few hiccups...but I made a card.  It's more on the masculine side which I intended.

I want to be honest, so I will say, I'm not totally thrilled with this card.  Let me share briefly what 'hiccups' I encountered when making this card.

First, I always try to sketch - but I was stuck.  I had in my mind that I wanted to use my scraps, but when I looked through my scraps, nothing was really working for me.  So as you can see I ended up using plain cardstock.

Next, I tried out my new Mister Huey color from Studio Calico.  It was much darker than I had anticipated. Then as I was stamping the airplane images, I was a bit lazy, so I didn't create a proper mask.  I just used a scratch paper when I was stamping to mask the border of the polaroid frame.  But, as you can see, I missed on area.  

Then, as usual with new stamps, the first impression is usually imperfect.  So I remembered to stamp first on scratch paper with the new stamps, but still, I got an imperfect impression for the sentiment, the chevron pattern, and the map stamp.  It seemed that everything I stamped was just not working with me tonight!  I tried to 'fix' my error on the chevron since it was bothering me, but the map stamp was not perfect so I had to stamp that again too!  So my 'fix' actually introduced another problem.  

For my button I like to add twine.  This button was not cooperating.  The twine kept on getting frayed and it wouldn't thread through the button holes!  I got frustrated and just left the button plain.  

And finally, the bottom of the card was too plain and it felt off balanced.  So I cut off about one quarter of an inch to get this final card size - that is not standard.  

So tonight I fought against some type of force that was causing me to struggle throughout the creation of this card.  I don't know what's going on here, but I definitely was having an 'off' night.  It happens to all of us.  Just have to look forward to a better night of creating.  Happy stamping, next time.  =)