MY CREATIVE PROCESS

This is what the finished cards look like.
These are all of my creative stumbles, failed attempts, none of these would work for me.

I am getting ready to start up in the card club again this year. I dropped out last year and gave it a break so I am excited to get back to it again. So much inspiration! We do a card swap when we meet, you make however many cards all the same, and you leave with the same number of cards, 1 from each player. It is so much fun, but I am having a hard time getting back into the swing of the 4 x 5 card format. I have been making the 5 x 7 cards for the last year and it gives me so much more room to create. I finished my cards, but I feel bad, they are not my best. I just couldn't seem to get what I wanted on to the paper.
I bring this up because a friend of mine asked me the other day "how long does it take you to make a card?" I tried to explain to her the physical making is not what takes time, it's getting the idea. Once I have the idea it's easy peasy!
For the swap I had this great idea to use some of my tie dye card stock. I cut some vase's with my Cricut and and some vellum flowers. I put these real pretty 1/2 pearls I found in the center. I don't like it, the vases are too big and they look dumb with the flower. Forget the vases, I'll just use the flowers. I cut some shapes with my new Spellbinders labels 8 die (one of my winnings from the Spellbinders contest). I embossed my cardstock with the Cuttlebug folder, then I decided to run through some stick and peel gold foil to add the bird as an element. I cut out all the birds and stuck them on the card stock and then I embossed the bird onto the card stock. Ok so I like the look of this but not the color of the card stock I chose. Change colors, I then use the Swiss dots Cuttlebug folder to emboss the frame I made with the labels 8. Then I decide the brown card looks too plain. I use a Sizzix embossing plate on that. But to emboss the front I needed to change the direction of how the card opens. Looks good, with the labels 8 rounded corners I decide it would look nice if I punched the corners round too. Ok I like that too. I add a ribbon, ok I guess. It needs something, and it's not the pretty vellum flower. The flower is too big! Ok go through all my embellishments to see what would look good. Problem, I now need to find something large enough to hide where I peeled the flowers off of the ribbon. Ok these pretty metal flowers are in the right size and scale (somewhat) but the centers are plain. Go through my bling and see what I can find. I tried rhinestones in red then green, nope! I see, the bright yellow seed beads! I put it on and say I'm done, but I'm just not that happy with the results. It's not ugly, I'm not fishing for someone to say oh, it's nice, I know it's ok. I just know I had something in my head and I could not translate that to the paper and it disappointed me. So that's what I mean when I say it's the idea that takes time. Am I the only one who creates cards like this? What do you do when you stumble and just can't seem to get it right?
Thanks for reading ~Diane