Exchange cards with hand decorated paper

For my exchange cards this month I made some decorative paper by layering several techniques. 

 I started with two pieces of paste paper which I made quite a while ago - one green and the other pink.  I started with a colour wash in a similar colour on both.  Next, I applied a script stamp in a darker colour.  If you check out the green image you can see that the green one was an asian character stamp.  Next, I did all over stamping with a background stamp with clear embossing ink and embossed them.  I used pearly embossing powder and a four petal stamp on the green one. You can see one of the motifs in the scan - it is lighter than the rest.  On the pink one I used a checker board stamp and clear embossing powder which very nicely preserved the pink colour of the original and allowed the texture of the paste paper to show through.  I followed that with a much darker colour wash which provided more contrast with the embossed areas which resisted the colour.  After that was dry, I added metallic acrylic paint with a spongy stamp I had on my desk and added little triangles in between to get better coverage.  I used gold on the green one and silver on the blue/pink one.  
I was not sure exactly how I was going to use them for my cards so I went to Splitcoast Stampers for a bit of inspiration.  I found several cards that I liked that used colourful circles to decorate their backgrounds so I punched as many circles as I could from each piece in four different sizes - 1.75", 1.25", .75" and .50".   I cut two pieces of shimmer cardstock  I created a while back and played with my circles until I was happy with the layout then glued them all down.  I adhered the backgrounds to coordinating card fronts before adding greetings and some embellishments.  I used a green colour printed greeting on the green card and embossed a wooden star with gold embossing powder to use as an embellishment.  The stars have been in my stash for a long time!!  For the pink/blue one I created a hot glue embellishment.  Have not made these in quite a long time.  I started with a little pool of hot glue on a piece of cardstock, poured silver embossing powder over it, shook off the extra and heated it with my heat gun.  Once it was all melted I gently placed a little flower stamp inked with embossing ink into it and let it cool.  Once cool the stamp simply lifts off revealing the embossed surface.  This technique is reminiscent of wax seals on letters in the old days.  I peeled off the paper backing and used hot glue to adhere it over my laser printed greeting on my card front. I added a bit of silver glitter glue to the center of the flower to jazz it up a bit.  
I am happy with these cards but I believe that my inspiration cards were more effective so I will have to go back and have another look and see if there is something about the design that I failed to consider in the creation of these cards.  
My cards are on their way to my swap partners as we speak!!
Therese