Victorian ladies

I've been meaning to make a card along these lines for ages,  inspired by several projects in old craft magazines. I  bought some sheets of toppers at the Make It show in Farnborough ..... not this year but last, and I'd not even opened the package until today. The paper is from a pad that came free with a craft magazine a few months ago and has been nagging me to use it ever since.

However I'm not really that pleased with the overall result. I'm really not all that good at "pretty" and I suppose however much I WANT to enjoy making pretty things, most of the time my heart just isn't in it.

So I'm submitting this to the Vintage-Nostalgic challenge at OLLCB - not because I'm proud of it, because I'm not,  but because I'd love to hear what YOU do when your hands want to make something outside your comfort zone but your imagination says "No!"