A card for an older boy...

I was looking through my cards and realized that I had no cards for friends on my son. And we recently went to a graduation party of a family member and I thought as I bought a $6.25 card, that I need to get to making some older themed cards. So earlier this week I went through all 5 shoe boxes of cards that I have and made sure that all were in their correct tabbed section, and teen/older boy cards didn't have any in there. So I am going to make a couple of the same cards (maybe?? not exactly sure of this yet) just changing the theme a little here and there.

So here is the first card that I made....I HATE IT! Seriously I do. It was like I couldn't get the process going right and then things just didn't seem to look good together and finally I just put some stuff down and here is what that looks like...

But after going to the park with the kids and having a good night's rest, I came up with this card. I like this one much better but it still isn't there just yet. The metal pieces don't really match but I guess that's ok? I guess? It's hard to match anything with the metal football/basketball because it is a really weird aged colored embellishment.

But here are the supplies and some general info on the card.

Supplies: 2nd card...Karen Foster mini metal sport charms(I believe), metal photo corner (unknown),Cuttlebug embossing folder-Happy Birthday, Martha Stewart border punch,Diesel classic alpha (MVP) cut from chipboard and then kraft colored cardstock and faux stitiching added.Fancy Pants fall ribbon, and misc buttons from my stash.
The only difference between the first and second card supplies is that I inked the MVP with Chestnut Roan chalk ink, added pop dots, distress the yellow mat with Heidi Swap's distress tool and added white paint mixed with Chestnut Roan ink to the red mat....(oops I used the same paint combination on both cards. )