Birthdays . . . and working on my style

Recently, I've been trying to hone my design style. One technique I'm trying is copying cards I admire. This card that I made for my nephew's birthday is a copied card. I saw it in PaperCrafts Magazine. I think the circles on the original card were cardstock, but I made mine from tissue paper and chose a color scheme to suit my nephew.

When the time came to make cards for two sweet friends whose birthdays are a day apart, I decided to try the banners I'm admiring everywhere:

This next card is based on a design I saw in PaperCrafts Magazine, but I had to change several things in order to get it as masculine as I wanted it. Aside from studying good design, I've also been studying my cards when I don't like them and trying to discern why. My first attempt at this card looked like this:

Sad, pale card

While I was still excited about my idea to use real cassette tape as ribbon, this card lacked pizzazz and the cassette seemed to get lost on the card. Also, I felt the color combination was just too stark, even for a masculine card. I reworked the card and came up with this version:

Now this is a card I'm proud of. I like its warm festive color scheme and its crazy cassette tape bow. The sentiment seems to point me straight to the party. Sending the orange piece through the crimper for texture and off-setting the elements for interest really changed the attitude of this card--and changed my attitude about the card. I'm sure there are other improvements that could be made, but I am encouraged that I am learning to improve my designs. 

Thanks for looking!