Dee's Alaskan Cruise

The cruise was outstanding!!!!!! I had such a wonderful time with Marge and Terry, and Dee, Warren, Pam, Cheryl, Ken, Sandi and Rosanne, and many new and beautiful people I met and will continue friendships with – especially the best dinner table ever!! – Charles and Deirdre, Rowena and JoAnn. There were so many wonderful moments, I cannot capture all of them here, but I have chosen a few to share. Please visit my Dee's Alaskan Cruise Album to see pictures – scroll down to it on the side bar.

Here are some highlights starting Friday, September 12th…

• FRIDAY: Terry and I hooked up at the airport and shared a taxi to the pier. We met Marge on board in our room. We were early enough to attend a ship tour to learn all the kool terms - like aft, forward, port and starboard. Marge taught us a trick to help us remember the sides of the ship - remember that port and left have the same number of letters. The official launch began with a pool side party with a live band. There was lots of dancing and fun.

• SATURDAY: We were at sea all day – which was great for the Dee stampin’ gang because we had the Welcoming Program and classes. Rubber Stamp Madness was a sponsor of the trip. Dee, Sandi, and Cheryl gave a sneak peak at the workshops and they also gave us a generous good bag!! The goodie bags were filled with stamps, tools, projects, crafting magazines, a CD, and more! Also included, were blank ATC cards and adhesive for a little competition to be held during the week. We were supposed to work on them in our spare time – who had spare time?!?! :o) Over 80 people attending the Welcoming Program and we had over 50 crafters attending the workshops. Marge, Terry and I had signed up for the same workshops. We started with Cheryl’s Acrylic Mini Book class – it was a new technique for all of us! I now have a new way to embellish that I just love! Needless to say, I bought some of those tools and templates to make my projects pop! You can visit Cheryl’s Blog to see what kool stuff she does. Due to the room set up – we had two rooms of students - Cheryl’s assistant, who also happens to be he husband, Ken helped us out quite a bit. Cheryl was so funny running back and forth and working the rooms. It’s a good thing she has such a great sense of humor and a lot of energy!

• SUNDAY: I woke up really early – we gained an hour and it through many of us off -especially those that came from the Eastern Time zone. I attended the interdenominational service. Father Forget shared with us that on the Wednesday before he was minding his own business in Nebraska, and was notified that due to an illness, he would be replacing someone on this cruise and was told to be in Seattle on Friday. Can you imagine?! What a surprise – a nice surprise. It was a very nice service. Since this was a day of walking, we wanted to have a good breakfast (THE food --– it was ALL GOOD! –I don’t want to say too much about it…I’ll just say I will be working it all off my hips for the next month). We set out on a walking tour of Sitka. Charles and Deirdre joined Marge, Terry, and me. Despite the pouring rain, we enjoyed the day – the museums, the park, the stop in a local pub to dry off and have a snack, and of course a stop for souvenirs. Would you believe the shop had a scrap booking section? :o) We all spent money – for our relatives, and ourselves. Sunday night, we attended Sandi’s Dimensional Cards Class. How fun!! There were no stamps involved, just lots of creativity and no two cards were alike. Sandi has a fabulous new book, Pop-Up Cards. She was gracious enough to sign for anyone who wanted her too – of course everyone who purchased a book, wanted her to sign. She is as lovely in person as you see her to be on DIY!! Rosanne, her assistant in the class, was full of ideas and ran around the room with tools we needed. What a sweetheart!

• MONDAY: Marge, Terry, and I attended Dee’s Bold Black & Whites class! It was great listening to her, taking notes, seeing all her fabulous examples, and watching her work the room encouraging the students. She brought so many of her stamp sets! I included some of Dee’s examples in the photo album, as well as photos of her demonstrating. If you ever have an opportunity to attend her class, GO!! She and Pam, her assistant, made sure we had all the stamps, embellishments, and supplies we needed. I made Halloween themed cards. Monday was also the day we sailed by the Hubbard Glacier – what a site!! We went to the upper level of the ship to see the beautiful site. In the afternoon, I watched Tim Yanke, an artist whose work is sold through Park West Art Dealers, paint live and talk about his style and the many different mediums he uses. He uses micro powders! That night our wonderful instructors hosted a lovely get together where we socialized and took pictures before dinner. After dinner Deirdre, Terry, and I “performed” in the Karaoke show. We sang “It’s Raining Men.” What a hoot. :o) Deirdre talked us into it. Charles had performed on Sunday night, and couldn’t resist getting up on the stage again this night to do another solo. We were all jamin’!

• TUESDAY: We stopped in Juneau. More walking, photo taking, and shopping. Yes, we found a crafting store. The cashier told us that Tim Holz and his crew had been by a few months earlier. Of course, we bought a few local stamps. It was cloudy, but no rain! On the ship I attended an Art 101 class which was very interesting and educational for me! After dinner we went to open crafting where we continued to work on our class projects, our ATC cards, and the goodie bag projects we received. The instructors set out their tools so we could borrow them. We were all gigglin’ and having fun. Many of the ladies had been on Dee’s stamp cruises before. For Terry, Marge, and me - this was our first crafting cruise ever! We had all been on a cruise before, but not like this!

• WEDNESDAY: The ship stopped in Ketchikan. At first we thought, why are we are stopping for such a short time? When we saw how the big, or should I say small, the town was, we had plenty of time to catch the sites, including finding art stamps in the local office supply store. :o) I also picked up some Alaska stickers for scrappin’ this trip. That afternoon Marge, Terry, and I attended Dee’s Variety of Veritable Verticals Class. WHAT FUN!!! She gave us a whole bunch a lot of examples. We got to use many of her stamp sets to build a tag album. I just love her animal sets!!

• THURSDAY: We started winding down. We attended the disembarkation seminar, which was informative and quite funny. We went to the crafting “garage sale.” Dee, Cheryl, and Sandi did not want to take anything back, so they had good prices for items. At the end of the sale, the ATC contest winners were announced. There were six winning cards. Warren and Ken were the judges. They told us the cards were all laid out for them and they did not look at any names. Marge won 1st place, I won second, and Deirdre won 4th. Three women from our dinner table!!! We were so excited. The prizes were items that the instructors had donated. Marge selected a folder of Dee’s ATC size stamp sets, I selected a cup that Cheryl had made (I’m thinking about her every morning as I drink my coffee), and Deirdre selected an extra goodie bag with lots more goodies in it. We were gigglin’ once again… That night, we had another lovely dinner with our table buds… reminiscing about our week and taking pictures of Rowena and JoAnn’s interesting and lovely earrings. During dinner, we had docked in Victoria…yep at night…we were surprised we were stopping at night, but we went with the flow. There were a group of us that went on a night adventure together – Marge, Terry, Charles, Deirdre, JoAnn, Warren, Dee, and me. We hopped in the van of man waving his arms and offering to take us on a roaming tour of the city for just $10 each. He promised to have us back in one hour, in plenty of time to leave. He was actually quite funny. He drove us around the city telling us about the history and some the challenges they have with homeless people, and he kept talking about real estate. I think he was trying to sell us a condo. He stopped a couple times and we took some dark pictures. :o) It was a nice, quick little tour. Terry, Marge, Charles, Deirdre and I ended the evening listening to the Ship's live band play Motown – a few us did a little dancing.

• FRIDAY: Time to get off the boat. Ahhhh, what a lovely time…

All of the instructors were fabulous –- with creative ideas, their willingness to teach us how to do what they do, AND they are just three beautiful women!!

Here some photos.... I’ll share more projects and more some details over the next week, or so....

     

    

Take care & STAY POSITIVE!!

Comments

[Julie]

Sounds like you all had great fun, perhaps one of these days I'll done one of these cruises

[Marge Dady]

Trena, you did a great job summarizing our week. We had an absolute BLAST!!

Dee, Sandi and Cheryl were marvelous instructors and even more marvelous people.

And crafting aside, the Alaska cruise part was pretty wonderful too!

[Debbie Olson]

This sounds like a TON of fun, Trena! Congrats on your ATC prize as well!