Masculine cards

My oldest brother's birthday is this week. 

 I searched the stash for card that I could send.  As usual, I have a shortage of masculine cards on hand. Sometimes masculine cards are so challenging for me - no flowers, no glitter, no fancy stuff. I tend to make cards that are more geared towards sending them to my lady friends.

But I needed something to send out soon, so it was easier for me to CASE something that I liked than to spend a long time creating it.

 I found these two cards in my picture files. One is a recent pin on Pinterest, the other has been in my computer files for some time. 

This is one I found on Pinterest just last week.

It uses the Wetlands stamp set and also the Dictionary background stamp. The card was originally made by Janine  Tinklenberg. 

The card base is Soft Suede, with a layer of Old Olive. I used Soft Suede ink for the background stamped on Very Vanilla card stock. The sentiment was stamped in Cajun Craze ink. The image was stamped in Soft Suede but colors were added with a blender pen (Old Olive, Crushed Curry and Sahara Sand).

I added twill tape, burlap ribbon and a bronze button with linen thread.

That was great, but I needed to have another choice! So I looked in my picture files and came up with this one:

I'm sorry but I don't know who originally made this card, but I love the way she used Designer Series Paper to resemble books!  

What a great way to use the scraps of the Well Worn DSP I had on my shelf! Using the Simply Scored tool and stamps on the "book spines" helped to achieve a realistic vintage-book look. Can you see the details? I hope so!

The "books" were glued to a piece of Newsprint DSP. The card base is Night of Navy card stock.

The sentiment was stamped in Night of Navy ink and punched out of Very Vanilla card stock, using the Modern Label punch. It's popped up a little with Dimensionals.

I added a cute mini library clip to complete the look!

He's getting this one, since he likes to read. 

With a houseful of guys I think I had better start making more masculine cards and stock up!