I hope you're enjoying Memorial Day! This can be a solemn day as we remember those we've lost, especially those in the military who made the ultimate sacrifice to keep us all safe -- but it's also a day for lots of family events and the unofficial start of summer up north (it's been summer here in Florida for weeks!). Growing up my grandfather called this Decoration Day and we always took homegrown flowers and lots of glass jars that we'd saved all year and visited the family cemeteries to mark the graves with a vase of fresh flowers. Because this IS a day for lots of families to get together — that's the theme of my post today. Notice the greeting on the card from the new Stampin' Up set called "In a Word" -- I love how each word can have a double-meaning. Ink them with markers to highlight that word-within-a-word -- and this "Get Together" one seemed perfect for an invitation. (I forgot to photograph the inside, but I used the invite stamp from the "Introducing" stamp for an easy invitation.) I made a matching treat box as well with the easy to use party favor boxes that are in the Summer Mini Catalog. The box includes the matching glossy belly band, which I dressed up by wrapping grosgrain ribbon around it.

A few "take-home" tips:

• Notice the button on the treat box flower. It's the Bitty Buttons with the coordinating punch used to punch out a piece of Turquoise card stock to stick underneath with a mini glu dot.

• I love the little vignette on the card -- so easy to stamp off the Olive leaf stamp -- then add the coconut drink -- then use the 1 & 3/4" circle punch upside down to crop out your little scene after it's stamped. This is such an easy way to mass produce cards when you need a bunch, such as for invitations or thank you notes.

• The striped paper from the fabulous Island Oasis Designer Series Paper pack is great for setting the color palette. I had my stamp clubs make 3" by 6" cards, cutting four 6" squares from the 12 by 12 Textured Card stock in all of the colors of the stripes -- Turquoise, Pumpkin Pie, Rose Red and Old Olive. By using Versamark Ink for the large flower on the card's background, everyone could easily get the tone-on-tone background look.

• The greeting was stamped with markers and then punched out with Stampin' Up's large oval punch, which layers perfectly here on the Scallop Oval Punch. (Can you see a theme with this card? Punches make it easy!) The only item I cut out was the small stamped flower and our Paper Snips made that easy to do.

• The accent flower on the top of the box is made from a Pumpkin and Olive flower that were punched out with the Five-Petal Flower Punch -- the Rose Red layer is just a little smaller and was die cut with the Big Shot machine and the new Island Floral BIGZ die -- so great for making lots of tropical flowers (and the flowers have holes in them so they easily slide onto a bamboo skewer. I'll post some photos of those soon!) Remember to curl your petals with a bone folder for a nice 3-D look.