Cards Lacking IN-terest?

Do you create a beautiful greeting card only to struggle with what to do on the inside? What, never thought about putting anything on the inside? Just stamp a quick sentiment?

As I have become more confident in my card making, I've begun to feel that there was something missing inside my cards. And do you know what? It's because there WAS something missing; anything at all! I would stamp a quick "Happy Birthday" and be done, but it just didn't feel right somehow.

Now I've realized, to quote a home decor axiom, that I needed to bring the outside in. That is, the inside should have a bit of the same feel as the outside. Now, there's no need to go all out and create an entire new work of art in there (unless it's for someone or some event that's VERY special, lol), but just a little something adds so much.

Here's an example I've made using Close To My Heart's stamp of the month set for April, World's Best Dad.

I've used CTMH's Sarsaparilla papers and Barn Red textured cardstock with simple accessories, just 2 pewter brads. I manipulated the acrylic stamp of the fishing pole so the line hangs down instead of being "on the fly" the way it arrives. (I love that I can do that with acrylic stamps!) And I added color in 3 ways: I colored the fishing fly stamp with my markers so it could be multiple colors; I colored the reel and handle with a marker; and I used a Twilight stamp pad direct-to-paper on the stamp background.

Turned out to be pretty nice looking for the simple techniques I used, if I do say so myself! Now, with all that color on the outside, how would you feel about a plain inside? Pretty boring, huh?

Let's see what I did to bring a little of that color inside the card. I will note that I left the sentiment off, although this set comes with a great "World's Best Dad!" sentiment. I just wasn't sure if I might want to use this for Father's Day, or a birthday, or something else entirely. So I'll add a sentiment when I 'm ready to give the card.

Now, just a quick dash of color to the inside. I stuck with Twilight, and repeated the direct-to-paper technique on opposite corners. I think that inking all of the edges would have been too much on a card this size (8 x 3.5). Then I added a quick bit of water and a jumpy fish in Desert Sand. I made the fish a little more realistic by adding color - his eye is Black and his spots and tail are Twilight.

Other options for bringing the outside in can be as simple as mounting your sentiment on a piece of patterned paper that coordinates with your front, or stamping a small coordinating image in a corner. I hope this gives you some inspiration; I'd love to see links to your cards where you've brought the outside in!

FYI, to see more examples using this stamp set, visit the My Art page of my website at http://loribrown.myctmh.com/MyCTMH/MyArt.aspx.

Here's a quick second example using last month's stamp of the month from CTMH: