SplitCoastStampers - Canadian Card Swap

I recently participated in a card swap via SplitCoastStampers. It was a 7+1, meaning I'm sending 7 cards, and the +1 is the one I keep for myself. I thought I'd clarify, since that always confuses me... maybe there are others like me out there, haha.

I decided to make a masculine birthday card. I think generally speaking cardmakers struggle with masculine cards, and I thought it would be nice for people to have one on hand. It was also a good opportunity to use the Jackson paper from Close To My Heart's Seasonal Expressions which just came out on April 1st. I really don't do much in those colors (lots of browns, some teal, etc) so this was perfect. This is what I came up with.

The Jackson paper is the brown patterned stripe towards the left side of my card (bottom in the paper packet picture below). You can see it under the button in the middle as well.

 

The big strip of beige-y colored stuff is Core'dinations, the rest is just plain old Recollections that I had on hand. 

The stamp is also from a new CTMH set, super versatile, it's called Finding the Words (D1646).

The button is from an old Sizzix Embosslit, and the twine is literally from some burlap I bought last fall. I just pulled out a few 'threads' to use. :) Oh and the distress ink is Vintage Photo. That was the first color of distress ink I bought, and I don't regret one bit. I use it all the time!

A couple of the swap ladies are local to me, one of them being the organizer, so we met up at a Starbucks and swapped cards. It was lovely meeting them both for the first time. We agreed we should get together more often, card swap or not!