Birthday cards 4 ways

A fun use for gelli prints. I had a session of gelli printing last year

and when I needed inspiration for a pocket art card, I cut a print into 4, and glued it to card bases.

You saw the first completed as a Pocket Art Card HERE

I needed to make some birthday cards for this past weekend, so grabbed out the remaining 3  - as you can see, I'd added some stamping to one, and some extra border colour

but the orangey tones just weren't singing to me, and the stamping wasn't doing it either. If you're at all familiar with my work, it won't come as a huge surprise to you that I started layering with stencils 

and soon I had transformed them to this

And then it was time to add some individual finishing touches. A bird (single layer of a serviette) was appropriate for the first card, and I was anticipating a whole day celebrating with my friend :

The next card had a lot more white on it, and I wanted to pick up a bit more of the pink, so added some paint pen outlining which I then smudged with a tissue 

What really made this come together, though, was stitching the Happy Birthday on which I had stamped onto a scrap of sheet music. The variegated thread is fun don't you think?

I was then inspired by both of these cards to complete the third which included a paper serviette flower, white pen detailing, and another stitched Happy Birthday.

Love how they each turned out so differently from the same base print. 

Which one do you like best?