Featured Blog Post - Sandy Evans

Another repeat Cricut Cruiser is Sandy Evans, aka Sandy from Ukiah. She was on the cruise last year with us and had such a great time she signed up for this year as well.

Here is a picture of Sandy and Sandie. Sandy is on the left.

Sandy has a blog where she has shared her experiences from the cruise so today I am featuring her Day 3 post, discussing the day in Cozumel. To read Sandy's experience click here --> DAY 3 OF CRICUT CRUISE

Featured Blog Post - April 25th 2012

Since I want to share the experience of the Cricut Cruise with everyone I think it is only fair that you guys can read the experiences of others as well. I will be posting links to various blog posts from others who are bloggers and were on the 2012 Cricut Cruise. They are in no sequential order or anything, just randomly chosen.

Today's featured blog post comes from Kat Schriber of KATSCRAPFEVER and was originally posted on her blog in April 12th.

CRICUT CRUISE 2012

contributed by Annette Hindes

Kat was not a winner of the cruise and she was like me and we paid for our cruise and classes. She did travel with husband and I think they had a great time. Here is a great picture of Kat with Cricut and Cuttlebug.

Formal Night

I really can't remember what night formal night was off the top of my head. I am sure I could look in my camera and get the date and when I get ready to scrap it I am sure that is just what I will do. I wanted to share the picture of the whole group that my friend Danita was nice enough to share with the Facebook group of cruisers.

I know there are some people missing from this picture but who all is missing is not certain. It was funny watching us trying to all fit on the stair case without crowding each other too much.

Notice how Cuttlebug and Cricut are dressed to the nines as well! They didn't join us for dinner that night, or any other night come to think of it. I think the reason might be that some folks are just a little edgy about bugs being close to their dinner plates. 

We actually did another group shot of all of us in our Cricut Cruise T-shirts. I will have to see if I can find that one and post it as well.

When we were all trying to find our spots for the group picture some woman and her daughter decided they needed to go down this very staircase for some reason, not that there weren't elevators on both sides of the stinking stairs!! I wanted to slap her and I think I could have smacked her real quick and blamed it on Karen but since we were just ready to go eat I figured I would just verbalize my displeasure in a polite manner...I think something to the tune of "how stupid can some people be".

The meal was good on formal night and I did enjoy seeing everyone dressed up. I made a beeline for my room as soon as dinner was over because I wanted to get out of the most uncomfortable pair of shoes I have ever owned in my life. Okay probably not the most uncomfortable but I will not be wearing them again for sure!

Big Cricut Found His Home!

I got word last night that Big Cricut did indeed find his way home to Treva's house and while Treva might have wondered what to do with such a larger Cricut I hear her daughter knew exactly what to do!

If you would like to read what Treva has to say about this new member of their family just check out Treva's Craft Corner: CRICUT LOVE. This is also the beginning of me linking blog posts of fellow cruisers who also have blogs.

I can't help but start laughing everytime I think about Dan pulling Treva's name out of the hat as the winner for the gigantic Cricut plushie! We all just kept laughing because Treva kept laughing. I really wish she would have taken it home on the plane so we could have seen pictures of people's faces as she went home toting this large one of a kind Cricut!

Cricut Cruise - Closing Social

After dinner the last night there were Cricut Plushies on our beds and each one had a note stating we would be sent a Cricut Mini machine! Now had I been told this before the cruise I likely would have rolled my eyes and thought "oh great another machine I can't use because I have to use Craftroom" but since we had played around with Cricut Craftroom while on the cruise and I got a chance to use one I was rather excited!


We were to meet later that night for the Closing Social. We knew at this point that the last Golden Cricut Expression was going to be given away! I had told Dan "don't put my name in there, if I won it I would have to polish the dang thing all the time because I wouldn't be able to stand the finger prints!". Now whether Dan left my name out or not is unknown to me. However the winner of the Golden Cricut was none other than my friend Sandie!!

contributed by I2BZ2W8

Here is Sandie showing her new Golden Cricut some love. Somehow she managed to pack that thing in her bag and get it home. I don't think she trusted anyone to ship it to her *okie cracks up laughin*. 

Another big prize was the rather LARGE Cricut Plushie which my friend Treva won. Treva got such a case of the giggles about winning this and thinking of how she would have to buy another plane ticket to get it home. She just kept giggling and that made all of us start laughing as well! Treva was very lucky since this is the ONLY Cricut Plushie this size! I think she could catch a pretty penny for it on eBay but I have no idea what she plans to do with it or how she got it home.

Here is Christy Carson, one of the fabulous instructors from ProvoCraft giving the giant plushie a little love.

contributed by Danita Kinney

Senor Cricut and Senor Cuttlebug even showed up for the party! Being the suave bugs they are they danced with a few of the ladies! My friend Karen Silva can sure cut a rug as she danced and glided with the Cuttlebug! I will see if I can find a picture later of Karen dancing. I was totally jealous of her skills! A lot of ladies clamored to get their picture taken with the Rico Suave bugs!









There were many other prizes given away that night as well. People were winning Cuttlebugs, Quilling Sets, Cricut Back Packs, Imagine Inks and I don't even know what else. Not everyone won a big prize and those that didn't win were asked to leave while the ones that didn't win were suppose to stay. I thought this was very nice of Dan and the others with ProvoCraft to want to make sure everyone got a little something extra. I mean we had already won the Ole cartridge, a back pack, a scoring tip, got $25 in Cricut.com credit for completing a survey, a Cricut figurine, a small and large Cricut Plushie and a Cricut Mini...how much did they think we needed to win??


Let me tell you something about women and free stuff....it is NOT A GOOD COMBINATION! Well the generosity turned into a fiasco as women started grabbing stuff left to right. One woman grabbed 4 of the quilling kits as others were just trying to get one. People were snatching supplies from here and there off the front table. I offered to hand out the Cricut Mini mats because at this point some of the PC folks were starting to look a little frazzled at the chaos. I don't think they had any idea what ugliness would come out of the situation. There were a few ladies trying to snatch the mats out of my hands. Well if you know anything about me you should know that is never a good idea to try and snatch something from me. One lady told me "you need to put those down" and I told her "you can have them if you pry them out my cold dead hands because I am not letting go until a PC employee tells me to put them down". I knew there were a few ladies that had gotten NOTHING during the, well the only way I can describe it is...SMASH AND GRAB and I was going to go down with the mats if I had to but those ladies were gonna get some extra mats if it was the last thing I did!

The ProvoCraft group was nice enough to donate a tool kit and a cutter for the school where I work. I did actually ask since they had donated an Expression during a promotion a few years ago. I took the items to the school and they were thrilled to get the donation!

After most of the ladies left when they felt they would get nothing else *okie sighs deeply and rolls her eyes just thinking about the chaotic frenzy* some of us stayed to help clean up the room. There was stuff everywhere and we sure didn't feel like the PC folks should have to do it all since we knew they had to be tired as well. We started gathering what was left and tossing stuff in boxes and taping them up. Within no time it was all packed up and we were ready to go finishing packing up our personal belongings and get ready for the trip home the next day....

I will be posting more about the cruise as memory and time allow. I will also be sharing links to blog posts by some other cruiser's. I want you guys to be able to get the experience from the point of view of others as well as I might be a little boring...oh wait, who are we kidding? That is one thing no one can ever accuse me of is being boring!! HA HA HA

Day 7 - At Sea, Project 4

The last day of the cruise was a bit melancholy for me, I was feeling sad about the cruise coming to an end and having to leave my all my friends, not only BFF Karen but also the new friends I had made. I was wishing we could just have two more days to spend together where we had no classes or no plans but just time to relax and hang out together. I know many others were just ready for it to be all over, including BFF Karen, but then again she as stressed about just moving to Florida and starting her new job. Wendi was ready to get home and see her kids as she hadn't been away from them that long before. I think Sandie and I were the only ones ready to just stow away and spend another two weeks on board.


Our last project of the cruise actually took up both class times and the ProvoCraft team was great about not rushing us as we all wanted to make sure we got this one right because it was THE BEST PROJECT EVER! Although, I did accuse Dan of them stealing the idea from my blog when I had done a PHOTOTRAY when I was on Joy's Design Team last year.

Here is a picture of Christy showing us the project before we got started.

I swear that woman has the patience of a saint putting up with everyone in class. She seemed to fret, as did Richard and Sharon when I would sit and do nothing and tell them "it's okay" when I didn't have all my pieces or room to work. I guess I should have explained to them that I don't scrap well with others. Hmmm, maybe some thank you notes are in order! Sounds like a good weekend project!

Here is the example we had for reference. I would like to thank Annette, a fellow cruiser for allowing me to use some of her pictures. I am sure there will be others I will thank in following posts about the cruise since there were a lot of things I didn't get pictures of.

Here is the photo tray I completed, again once I got home. I did get some of the parts done during class but I knew I wanted to add pictures so I chose to finish up at home.


The ProvoCraft team pulled all the stops out on this one. We used pleather, vinyl, sand, and even did etching!!


We added sand that we gathered from the beaches on the words Mexico and Jamaica. This was done by adding Glossy Accents on the lettering and then covering with sand. If you try this method I will say don't over use the Glossy Accents or it will be hard to read the letters. We also added sand in the little bottles, one for each place we ported.


I wanted to choose pictures from each place that meant something to me so for the Cozumel I chose the picture of us in front of the ship when we were going to board.


I used my photo program to size the pictures to the correct space I had allowed. I love the passport embellishment!












For the picture at the Caymans I chose the picture of Karen and I with the pirate, it just seemed like a fun picture to use! It's a bit hard to see and you might have to click on the picture and make it bigger, the year 2012 is etched on the bottle of sand. I actually didn't have enough shells to finish this project from what I got on this trip but luckily I had some from my stash from last year's trip. I figure at least they all did come from the Caribbean Sea so it is still pretty authentic.






For the Jamaica picture how could I not use the one of me and our taxi driver? Although, I might have to cover his eyes when I take a shower or go to the bathroom!

The picture was a little more difficult to do because of the shape. I had put plastic over each of the pictures since this will find a home in my "beach" bathroom and I don't want steam messing up the pictures. I did finally decide that brads around the picture would hold the plastic in place.

The embellishment in this little area was designed so nicely and I absolutely love it!

I did add one other little special thing to my photo tray! My friend Sandie had made me this little chotchkey and brought it to me on the cruise. Since it had an ocean theme, it was given to me on the cruise and Sandie was on the cruise I thought it was a perfect way to display it!


I loved it so much that I ordered a bunch of the Memory slides, frames and other supplies from Blitsy so I can make some of my own!


Tomorrow's post will be about the Closing Social and the fabulous gifts we all received! So stay tuned, it isn't quite over yet!

Day 6 - At Sea, Project 3

Our project 3 was an Autograph book, although I am not sure anyone got an autograph in their book. I of course didn't finish mine until I got home. I didn't finish any project until I got home. Why you ask? BECAUSE I DO NOT SCRAP WELL WITH OTHERS! I am too dang nosy and too dang social to sit down and finish a project. I did work on my projects so at least I looked like I was doing something, at least for a few minutes I did. Then I would become engrossed in thoughts about one thing or another *okie knows she better not even try to explain her deep thoughts to folks or she will either be sent to a hospital for a nice little inpatient stay or be landing in jail*, or be walking around looking at what others were doing or just yakking with someone.

Luckily I do have pictures of the project since I did finish it at home!

When we were shown the project there was a lot of "oohs and aahs" going on for sure! I thought this one looked fairly easy and I would get it done during class...YEAH RIGHT! I did get some inking done and my flowers cut with the Cuttlebug and put together, but once again I had to bring the project home so I could finish it.

This is the book that was displayed for us to look and use as an example. Very pretty isn't it!!

We used the Chrysanthemum quilling kit to make our flowers for the book and they were simple to make, even though I was told by a classmate "oh you did your flowers wrong...but they are pretty anyway". Of course since it was my book I figured I could have artistic license to make my dang flowers however I wanted! *okie won't say she read the directions wrong...especially since she believes "there are no mistakes in crafting, only creative opportunities"*. Evidently I didn't cut my papers correctly or something because I had to make snips on each line with scissors. I think it was because my kit had cardstock instead of paper and it is more difficult to cut cardstock with the kit.

Here is my book finished. I did add a few things extra on mine, including stamping the "create" definition in the yellow area. BFF Karen cut a "K" out of the pleather *okie thinks pleather is such a fun little word* and added to her yellow area and it was really nice looking. I wish I had a picture to show you, but I don't.


I also added the bling and the little bird out of my own supplies at home.

In the close up picture you can see where my big flower has 4 layers, I think it was only suppose to have 3, if I remember correctly. I added some Liquid Pearl dots in the center of the flowers because, well I just love the heel out of some Liquid Pearls! I think the bling swirls really added a lot as well.

In this picture you can see the dimension a little better and also see the little closure ban that we put on the book. All the pages in the book are blank. I showed a picture of this to my friend Carmen, aka ScrapperDelighted, and she wanted to know if I was going to use this as a prize at my next Annual Girlfriend Christmas Party. I told her "I think I will keep it for myself", she sounded a little disappointed with that but I did tell her "ya know you can make your own dang book!".

Another "okie addition" was inking the book. It was white...just plain stark white, and in my world that just will not do! I dotted Chestnut Roan and Creamy Brown Chalk Inks on the back and then smeared, yes that is a technical art term, with a paper towel to get the effect shown in the picture.






The book was a lot of fun to make and I think BFF Karen was really proud of her book she completed. She was afraid of the flowers getting smashed on the way home but as far as I know it made it home safe and sound.