Forcing it???

Remember the inspiration challenge I gave myself the other day? Well, I also gave myself a deadline for this weekend...so I had to sit myself down and come up with something. But I'm just not good under pressure!! The day after I posted the Matisse painting I realized that I had received all the pieces I needed from my friends Mary and Karen to make this card (little did they know!). The background paper from Mary and all the embies from Karen reflect all the colors in the original painting. So I just had to figure out a way to use them!! The first card is a quite literal version and actually was what I was trying to stay away from. The second card is actually what I was inspired to make (made this one first) from the painting and the gifts that my friends had given me. After I created the peapod baby I thought maybe it was too eclectic. I'm not used to using a lot of embellishments but I wanted to use as many as I could to portray all the fish. So then, doubting myself, I created the more literal "fish" card that you see below. And that one turned out too plain. I just can't win with forced inspiration. I think I'll stick to just letting my creative mojo flow (as you'll see in my very next post). Thanks for looking...feel free to vote on which version you prefer and any ideas to make them better! It's just another Monday ;)