Finally Friday Simple Thanks

Wow it's finally Friday! I haven't been able to post much this week! I've had my scrapbooking hat on!
Today's card is a simple Thank You card I made using the gorgeous new Sweet Floral stamp! This extra large stamp is perfect for scrapbooking pages! I love it!
Any color scheme or sentiment would work for this versatile card!
I have shared supplies and instructions for you below! :)

Supplies:
- 5x6.25 inch Kraft Card Base
- 4.5x5.75 inch piece of Cajun Craze
- 4.25x5.5 inch piece of Baja Breeze
- 1.75x5 inch piece of Basic Gray
- Scrap piece of Cajun Craze
- Seam Binding Ribbon in Very Vanilla
- Mini Clothespin
- Baja Breeze Ink and Chocolate Chip Ink
- Brayer (Optional)
- Thanks sentiment from the Tagtastic stamp set
- Sweet Floral Stamp
- Any swirl stamp OR the you can use the swirls on the Thanks stamp
- Framed Tulips Embossing Folder and Big Shot
- Scalloped Circle Punch
- Scallop Trim Border Punch
- Score Board and Bone Folder

Instructions:1. Ink your Sweet Floral stamp with Baja Breeze ink. (Optional)You can make it easier to ink larger stamps by using a brayer to roll over the ink pad and then roll the ink onto your stamp. Stamp the center of your piece of Baja Breeze cardstock.
2. Take your piece of Baja Breeze and emboss with the Framed Tulips embossing folder.
3. Adhere your large piece of Cajun Craze cardstock to your card base. Adhere the piece of Baja Breeze to the piece of Cajun Craze.
4. Take your piece of Basic Gray and use the Scallop Trim Border Punch to punch along the top and bottom. Lay the piece onto your score board and score lines at the top and bottom right along the punched border.
5. Take your seam binding ribbon and tie a piece onto a longer piece. Adhere this to the piece of Basic Gray cardstock. Slide the knotted piece to the left and adhere to the front of your card.
6. Stamp your sentiment onto the scrap piece of Cajun Craze and punch with the Scallop Circle punch. Adhere under your knotted piece of ribbon with a foam adhesive square.
7. Take the mini clothespin and stamp a swirl onto it with the Baja Breeze ink. Clamp the clothespin onto the knotted ribbon and adhere the back to the card with a foam adhesive square.

And it's that simple!
To purchase any of the Stampin Up products I used please contact your Stampin Up demonstrator OR go HERE! If you have ever thought about joining Stampin Up you have until July 31st to take advantage of the $99 starter kit! Click HERE for details!
As always if you have any questions simply send me an email at aprilmassad@yahoo.com or comment here!
Have a safe and wonderful weekend!!

Finally Friday Father's Day Card

Well it's finally Friday! The week is ending but Brodey's school isn't out until Wednesday!
Today I thought I would post a Father's Day card we made in my May Stamper's Night Out!
This fun stamp set is from the Stampin Up Summer Mini Catalog. It's called Best Dad Ever! Even though this card wouldn't work for my Dad, I LOVE the ties!

The girls at SNO had a great time heat embossing on this card with the clear embossing powder. Clear embossing powder really makes your stamped images POP! It makes the color brighter and it gives a handmade card a little WOW!
If you have never heat embossed before you have to try it! It's so much fun! I have a How To HERE and below I'm sharing the directions to make this card!

Supplies:
- 4x5.5 inch card base
- 4x5.5 inch piece of Basic Gray cardstock
- 2x3.5 inch piece of Riding Hood Red cardstock
- .5x3.5 inch piece of More Mustard Cardstock
- 2.25x3.5 inch piece of Whisper White Cardstock
- .5x3.5 inch piece of Whisper White Cardstock
- Small Circle punched from More Mustard Cardstock
- Brad
- Basic Gray Ink
- Markers in Basic Gray, Riding Hood Red, and More Mustard
- Clear Embossing Powder
- Powder Tray (Optional but helpful to pour powder into and refill)
- Heat Gun
- Versamark Ink
- Stamp-a-ma-Jig
- Best Dad Ever Stamp Set
- Corner Rounder (Optional)

Directions:
1. Take your large piece of Whisper White cardstock. Temporarily adhere it to your work surface with temporary adhesive. Use your Stamp-a-ma-Jig to position your stamp to stamp the center of the carstock.
2. Take your markers and color the ties. Once all the ties are colors huff on the stamp to remoisten the ink and stamp. Clean your stamp off.
3. Use your Stamp-a-ma-Jig again to postion the tie stamp right over the stamped ties. Ink your tie stamp with Versamark and stamp right over the ties again.
4. Pour your embossing powder over your stamped image over the embossing tray. Very lightly tap off excess powder and heat with the heat gun just until the embossing powder turns shiny. (Overheating will cause your powder to burn and yellow.)
5. Allow to cool and use your corner rounder to round the top two corners of the cardstock.
6. Take your strip of More Mustard and stamp the Best Dad Ever stamp onto the left side with Versamark ink. Use your clear powder to heat emboss the sentiment.
7. Dry Emboss your piece of Basic Gray cardstock and adhere to the front of your card.
8. Take your strip of Whisper White cardstock and stamp Happy Father's Day with Basic Gray ink. Adhere to Red Riding Hood Cardstock.
9. Take your circle of More Mustard and poke a hole in the center. Feed the brad through and attach to piece of Red Riding Hood cardstock.
10. Adhere your pieces to the card as shown in photo.

Such a handsome Father's Day card! So many different color combos will work if you aren't into these! I was going for more of a retro look! ;)
Well I hope you like today's card!
Don't forget to comment on yesterday's post for a chance to win a copy of the new CK Scrapbooking Tips and Tricks Flower Issue! It's a good one!
Enjoy your fab Friday!

Inspired By...

I made this card a few weeks ago for a sweet friend that is expecting her first baby soon! Yellow, gray, and white is one of my favorite color combos so you can imagine how excited I was when I was in Target and spotted a kitchen towel in that same color combo!
Isn't it pretty!?! I was so inspired, had to make a baby card, and the rest is history. Haha!

Supplies Needed to Make this Card:
- White 4x5.5 Card
- 5.25x3.75 Piece of Daffodil Delight Cardstock
- 5.75x1 Piece of Basic Gray Cardstock
- Whisper White Cardstock
- White Embossing Powder
- Heat Gun
- Versamark
- Basic Gray Ink
- White Grosgrain Ribbon
- Corner Rounder
- Elephant from the Animal Stories Stamp Set
- New Baby from Fun and Fast Notes Stamp Set
- Stamp-a-ma-Jig

Directions:
1. Take your piece of Daffodil Delight cardstock and round the top corners with your corner rounder. Draw a light line with your pencil about 1.75 inches from the bottom to be your guide when stamping the elephants.
2. Using your Stamp-a-ma-Jig, stamp your elephant with Versamark ink and heat emboss with white powder. Allow to cool so you don't smear the image. Stamp and emboss two more elephants, leaving room for your gray elephant. Erase your pencil line.
3. Take your strip of Basic Gray cardstock and punch a border along the bottom. Adhere to the Daffodil Delight piece about half an inch from the bottom.
4. Using your Stamp-a-ma-Jig, stamp and emboss the New Baby sentiment onto your Basic Gray strip below where you left the space for the gray elephant.
5. Stamp your elephant onto Whisper White with your Basic Gray ink. Cut out and adhere in the space with a foam adhesive square.
6. Adhere to the front of your card.
7. Tie your ribbon onto another piece of longer ribbon, wrap around your card, and secure on the back with glue dots.

Fun and simple! You could use any of the sweet animals in this stamp set! Stampin Up also has another sweet animal set called Fox and Friends or another cute elephant stamp called Baby Steps.
Well I hope you liked today's card! Enjoy your Saturday!

Ships and Blogs

Well (as most of the blogging world knows) Blogger went down yesterday like a sinking ship and took with it all of the comments left by my awesome readers. So...if you left a comment on any of this weeks posts THANK YOU!!!
Speaking of ships I promised yesterday I would share a card made using the brand new Open Sea stamp set and Nautical Expedition Paper from the Summer Mini Catalog!
This card is very quick to put together. Just make sure you don't stamp the compass upside down like I did! Hehe! ;) This card could be for Father's Day, graduation, birthday, or just about any manly occasion!
The sentiment is not a stamp. I typed it out and printed it onto Marina Mist cardstock. This was a card in my Stamper's Night Out Class and I wanted it to be an all occasion card. I used the Happy Father's Day stamp from the Best Dad Ever set and stamped the inside of the card. There are many sets that include Father's Day sentiments like All Holidays, Teeny Tiny Wishes, and there is even a set called Word Play that has a stamp that says "You Mean the World to Me."

To make this card you need:
- White Card 5.5x4
- Not Quite Navy Cardstock cut (or ripped) to 3.5x5.5
- Red Striped Piece from Nautical Expedition Paper cut/ripped to 2.5x3.75
- Marina Mist Cardstock cut/ripped to 2.75x3.5
- Whisper White Cardstock cut/ripped to 2.5x3.5
- Antique Brad
- Baker's Twine
- Open Sea Stamp Set
- Ink in Not Quite Navy, Basic Gray, Riding Hood Red, Crumb Cake

1. Stamp the ship stamp in Not Quite Navy in the lower right corner of the Not Quite Navy piece of cardstock. Adhere to the card.
2. Adhere your piece of red striped paper about an inch from the left side of the card.
3. Stamp the ledger stamp onto the Whisper White cardstock with Crumb Cake ink. Stamp the world stamp onto the left side with the Not Quite Navy ink. Stamp the anchor to the left of the world in Basic Gray. Stamp the compass stamp in Riding Hood Red at the bottom of the world.
4. Adhere the stamped piece onto the piece of Marina Mist cardstock. Use a paper piercer to punch a hole through both pieces and insert brad.
5. Tie the baker's twine around the paper and wrap around the brad. Trim ends.
6. Adhere about a quarter of an inch from the left side of the card.

Now wasn't that easy!?! Beautiful, but manly, cards are sometimes a challenge to come up with! Here is one that would be perfect for any aged boy OR woman!
If you have any questions about this card please email me at aprilmassad@yahoo.com! Also if you would like a Summer Mini Catalog mailed to you just send me an email with your mailing address!

-My next card post will be a baby card I made a while ago for a dear friend who is having a baby soon! I used the Animal Stories stamp set and was inspired by....a kitchen towel! Haha! I'll even post a pic of the kitchen towel!
Well folks have a fabulous Friday!

Don't Judge a Stamp Set...

I've always agreed with the phrase "Don't judge a book by it's cover." I have read many books that were wonderful but had terrible covers! After this week I'm convinced this phrase applies to stamp sets as well as books! Although I'm not quite sure how you would alter it. "Don't judge a stamp by it's black and white image in a catalog?" Haha! I hate to admit that this hostess set in the new Summer Mini wasn't my favorite stamp set in the catalog. When I got it a couple of weeks ago I wasn't that thrilled about it but I was in a Poppy Parade kind of mode. I had just been at the Gap and bought a shirt that exact color, painted my toes that color, and I was dying to use it in my papercrafting. I guess you could say Love and Care came at the right time. I started playing around with it and came up with the card above. I LOVED it and I knew my girls at Stamper's Night Out would too!
I had so much fun making that card that I just starting stamping different color combinations. Then I thought WOW! I could make Brodey's teacher a set of cards for Teacher Appreciation week!

I took several different sentiments from the Sincere Salutations set and stamped them with Basic Gray. (Basic Gray goes with any color combo) I took the smaller flower stamp and stamped around the sentiment with So Saffron ink. Then I punched the sentiments out with the Decorative Label Punch. I also adhered double sided foam adhesive squares to the backs of the sentiments. I left the backing on the adhesive so that she can add the sentiment she needs to whatever card she chooses.
So Saffron is a beautiful shade of yellow that has many beautiful color combos in the Color Coach. I ended up stamping 6 different card with 6 different sentiments. Listed below are the color combos I used for the cards starting with the card in the upper left of the photo.

Regal Rose - Early Espresso - So Saffron
Tangerine Tango - Pacific Point - So Saffron
Melon Mambo - Tempting Turquoise - So Saffron
Cajun Craze - Always Artichoke - So Saffron
Perfect Plum - Wild Wasabi - So Saffron
Poppy Parade - Baja Breeze - So Saffron

Once the cards were stamped I put the sentiments in a baggie and tied them all together with a pretty ribbon! I let Brodey stamp her a card with the same stamp set and he really enjoyed doing it!
This stamp set is a Hostess Set that is available for a limited time in the Summer Mini Catalog. If you would like more info on how to get this set please send me an email at aprilmassad@yahoo.com!
I hope you enjoyed today's post! Tomorrow I will share a Father's Day card using the new Open Sea stamp set and Nautical Expedition Paper!

I LOVE Color

Color is fun. Color is beautiful. Color is exciting!!! So why are people scared of it? ;)
I'll admit it can be intimidating sometimes to figure out that perfect color combination, but I have the perfect solution...Never fear! The Color Coach is here! Haha! I had to!
I love this thing! It has all the Stampin Up colors on one side and it has two different color combos on the other.
The color combos are awesome! I use this almost every time I make a card. I even used it today to make this fun card with the Love Defined stamp set.The colors I used for this card are Cajun Craze, Baja Breeze, Basic Gray, and Chocolate Chip! LOVE that color combo!
The directions and supplies for making this card are below.

Directions:
1. Take your Baja Breeze, Cajun Craze, and Basic Gray markers and color the hearts on the tree stamp. (Coloring three hearts at a time gives the tree a more unified look) Once you have the hearts colored, color the tree trunk with your Chocolate Chip marker.
2. Remoisten the inked stamp by huffing or blowing your breath on the stamp. Stamp the tree onto Whisper White cardstock and cut out with a scalloped square. Mat the scalloped square with Baja Breeze cardstock.
3. Color your LOVE stamp with the same markers and stamp onto Whisper White cardstock. Punch the LOVE out with your small oval punch and adhere to a large scalloped oval punched from your Cajun Craze cardstock.
4. Adhere your tree, LOVE oval, and two hearts punched from Cajun Craze and Baja Breeze cardstock to your card.
5. Punch the edges of your Baja Breeze, Cajun Craze, and Chocolate Chip cardstock with your decorative edge punch. Trim to fit your ribbon width.
6. Adhere your trimmed cardstock on top of each other, leaving a peek of the color at the bottom. Tie your ribbon across and you are done!

Supplies:
-Love Defined Stamp Set
-Stampin Right Markers in Basic Gray, Cajun Craze, Baja Breeze, and Chocolate Chip
-Small Oval Punch
-Scallop Oval Punch
-Small Hearts Punch

Well I hope you are having a marvelous Monday! Brodey is at school today learning about Martin Luther King, Jr. They were supposed to be out, but had to make up a snow day.
I hope you enjoyed today's card share! If you have any questions please send me an email at aprilmassad@yahoo.com! Remember you can shop for Stampin Up products 24/7 online HERE!

Apple Blossoms

Happy Monday stampers! Today is a snow day for us so I took advantage and made a couple of cards!
I love this set! It's called Apple Blossoms. It's a hostess set that you can actually get for free with a qualifying Stampin Up workshop OR order.
I LOVE the colors on these cards. I used the Color Coach to come up with the color combo. I knew I wanted to use Basic Gray and when I looked it up in the Color Coach it suggested Basic Gray, Melon Mambo, and Old Olive. Beautiful!
My next Stamper's Night Out will be Tuesday February 8 at 6:30! The spots fill up pretty quickly so if you would like to reserve a spot email me at aprilmassad@yahoo.com!
Well I'm off to make a pot of stew! It's the perfect day for it! Yum!