Birthday wishes and Argyle dreams

Both of my brothers-in-law have November birthdays, and I'm sure horrible at getting them cards at any regularity. They've received many a Happy Birthday & Holidays card over the years. Now that I'm obsessed with online cardmaking challenges, I don't have any excuse. For inspiration I started at the Cards for Men challenge blog (well, duh) and they must have read my mind because the current challenge is Happy Birthday. For color inspiration I went to Splitcoaststampers and a fairly manly color combo of deep purple, dark red and olive green. It was also a perfect opportunity to modify my magic picture card for circles. Now that's manly.
I made two versions of the same card, but they're certainly one-of-a-kind. The first one I made was mainly focused on the theme challenge, with a serious nod toward the color challenge. For the paper I used a mauve/white/olive DCWV cardstock I've been eying in my stash. I designed everything in SCAL2 for my Cricut personal cutter, including the text. One of my favorite tricks is to use use Cricut markers to write and then cut the card layers. I'd never "printed" and cut transparency paper, but it worked as well as it does in the printer. The card pulls out half-way to read "and more!" like in the photo below.
Cards for Men challenge #21: Happy Birthday
Supplies: Cricut personal cutter, SCAL2 software, Recollections cardstock, 3M transparency film, DCWV cardstock, ZipDry glue, Tim Holtz scissors, Cricut markers
For the second card, I took on the color challenge's dessert option: argyle. I took a piece of glitter-embossed black and gray argyle-patterned cardstock that I've been saving for the right project and colored it by hand. Definitely worth the time! And I really love the color combo.
Supplies: Cricut personal cutter, SCAL2 software, Recollections cardstock, 3M transparency film, DCWV cardstock, ZipDry glue, Tim Holtz scissors, Sharpies, Marvy LePlumeII pens, Cricut markers
Splitcoaststampers CC293: Concord Cherry Olives + dessert option: Argyles

Original inspiration for magic picture cards: Naked Mole Rat magic picture card by CPeep at Extreme Cards & Papercrafting
Magic Card tutorial: SplitcoastStampers
Magic card template for SCAL2 by cg-says