Aperture card and Valentine card

I belong to the MCT_Tuts Yahoo! Group and saw the tutorial for an aperture card.   They are really cool!  This is my take on it.  

~The owl silhouette is from the MTC gallery.  To do this, join an oval to the original card front.  Then add the silhouette, making sure it is large enough to overlap a little on to the card.  Weld these together.  Cut a background paper for the opening.  Cut a contrasting paper for the front with the same oval cut out (but no owl in it).  I made a scalloped frame welded to the same size owl.  Cut that twice, so there are really 3 owls.  Use pop dots for some dimension, too.   I added some stickles to the owl for sparkle, so that I would not need to draw a face on him.  Cut and paste, I can do... drawing, not so much! 

I wanted to make some Valentine cards, and started with this one.  Not as thrilled with the outcome as I expected to be while I was designing it in MTC.

  

~I welded some hearts to the base card shape.  Made a border in pink of the same shapes.  Then did an inset shadow on the smaller ones in a sparkly white paper.  

Added a rectangle, then used the lattice feature.  Brock Script for the 'True Love' and made a shadow layer to weld to the lattice.  I did have to go back and make a thin shadow to use because at this size, the letters would not cut clearly.   I added to small oval openings for the ribbon.  Backed it with the sparkly paper and voila!   I still think it needs something more.  Maybe my paper is too bland.  Any ideas and/or suggestions??