Easy to Advanced with the Same Basic Layout

All of the cards pictured are based on the same basic design.  The green one is the most basic - a card base, background patterned matte, the embossed layer along with its matte and a stamped sentiment.  

The brown one is stepped up with some ribbon and embellishments.  The blue one has the sentiment stamped on its own, punched out, matted twice with coordinating papers from the backgrounds, and then using dimensionals, it was centred on the embossed layer. 

 The last two, I added a sponged ink onto the embossed paper to highlight the embossing.

All of these show the variety of colours you can combine, which in itself is limitless.  Another neat trick on the final three is that I punched the patterned matte from the centre of the background matte piece rather than using another piece of paper and wasting more.  You are layering pieces on top, so the missing piece out of the middle will never show and no one will know the difference!