Birthday Blues, Just the Color, Not the Sadness

As the boys in my family get older, it gets harder to make cards for their birthdays that don't seem like little boy cards. I found a sketch that made a really great card for my nephew who is turning 12.

The sketch is from Freshly Made Sketches, and looks like this:

This is my take on the sketch.

I started with a vanilla card base and added some patterned paper from Stampin' Up! to the middle, just lower than center.  I found this really cool bakers twine at Target this past Christmas time that is vanilla and gold, so I wrapped a piece of that around to break up the color.

The image is a word art image that I love for masculine cards.  It's pretty without being girly.  I stamped it in blue on vanilla and matted it on blue card stock, thus the need to break up the color with the bakers twine.

To tie into the gold of the pattern paper, I added some gold embossed stars to the card front.

For the inside, I added more of the same paper and bakers twine, and stamped a simple birthday sentiment.

Thanks for looking!

Products:

Card stock:          Very Vanilla, Night of Navy--Stampin' Up!

Ink:                         Night of Navy--Stampin' Up!, Versa Mark

Stamps:                Engraved Greetings (retired), Look Who's Turning (retired) and Pennant                                       Parade (retired)--Stampin' Up!

Tools:                    Gold Embossing Powder--Stampin' Up!

Embelishments:   Bakers twine--Target $1 bin