Thankful

Today’s port visit is Cozumel, and I am so very thankful to be on this wonderful island yet again.  I come here time and time again (every cruise out of Galveston stops here, I think), and I just never tire of it.  I’m not sure, but maybe it is because my stay is always so short.  I just don’t ever get a chance to see or do as much as I would like.

I’m thankful for a lot of other things, too, like the wonderful collaborators I’ve had on this cruise, Susie and Valerie, and of course our guests.  Last night, we thanked them with these cute little bags made by Valerie.  In each bag is a charm pin to remind them of our cruise.

Tomorrow will be our final day at sea before returning to port in Galveston.  Our cruise through the year is almost over, but we still have many more great projects from this cruise to share with you, so I hope you’ll stick around!

Happy Hauntings!

After a day in Honduras, today we are visiting our second port, which is Belize City, Belize.  Today I have a treat for you.  Actually, a Trick or Treat of sorts, because our pillow gifts last night were a little spooky.

For our Halloween night of Cruising Through the Year, I made this little haunted house using the milk carton cut on the Close to My Heart Artiste Cricut cartridge.  Many of the other elements on these haunted cartons also came from Cricut cartridges, too.  A complete list of supplies can be found below.

One little note if you try to assemble one of these for yourself…I didn’t want my haunted house to look like a milk carton, so I worked in a couple of extra folds that are not marked on the Cricut cut.  I have made a video of the assembly process which I will post on this blog some time in the near future.  Until then, I’m hoping the photo below will demonstrate the extra folds.

Supplies:

Stampin’ Up Card stock:

Basic Black

Rich Razzleberry

Real Red

Pumpkin Pie

Daffodil Delight

Old Olive

Pacific Point

Whisper White

Cricut Cartridges:

George and Basic Shapes:  window

Handyman:  fence

Simply Charmed:  ghost, tombstone, bat

Close to My Heart – Art Philosophy: window frame

Close to My Heart – Artiste: milk carton

Punches:

Stampin’ Up 1-3/8” Cricle:  candy dispenser

Stampin’ UpPetite Curly Label Punch: “Lift”

Stampin’ UpWord Window: doorstep

EK Success Deco Scallop:  Roof

Martha Stewart Drippy Goo border:  windows

Stamps:

Stampin’ Up Googly Ghouls

Embossing Folders:

Stampin’ Up Square Lattice embossing folder

Button Magnets:

Basic Grey

The lid on this little treat box lifts up to reveal a hole where you can fill it with candies.  I suggest wrapped candies like Tootsie Rolls or Jolly Ranchers, etc. that will fit through the hole easily.  The lid attaches to the house a a very steep angle, and although it is glued down on one side, the side that opened had a tendency to pop up.  My solution was to use mini pancake magnets made by Basic Grey.  Two magnets go on the inside of the house on either side of the hole.  Their counterparts go behind a strip of paper on the underside of the roof.  I tried this with velcro and other fasteners, but they wound up pulling off or tearing the paper, so the magnets worked best, and only when they were separated by paper so that they could be pulled apart without tearing the paper or coming unglued.

There are a couple of items I cannot remember where they came from.  One is the skull stamp.  It was part of a mini-pack of stamps I bought for $1 somewhere.  I think the spiderweb came from there, too.  If I could find the package, I could figure out who made it, but it has somehow disappeared!  Two other items, the window frame and the pumpkin, were both Cricut cuts, but I did all my design work on the Gypsy and now I can’t figure out which cartridge it came from!  If I figure it out, I will update this post.  The door was just a rectangle with a brad for a doorknob.

That’s it for today.  I know this little house is a bit out of season, but we are cruising through the year with our pillow gifts, and next up is Thanksgiving.  I hope you enjoyed today’s project and don’t forget to come back tomorrow!

Really ugly photo showing which score marks to add/omit. Click to zoom.

Addendum 1/1/14:  
Woo hoo!  I found my little Halloween stamps that I used to make the spiderweb and the skull.  It was a "Studio G" clear stamp, Series 34.  Here's a picture of the stamp set:

Thanks, Soldier!

Today we stopped in Roatan, Honduras.  Even though Roatan is actually an island off the coast of Honduras, every time I think of this country, I think of the military build-up here in the early 80's due to the strife in El Salvador.  I knew a few soldiers who were sent to serve here, and fortunately, they all returned home safely.  I'm sure there were others who were not so lucky.  Being in the military is tough, and we don't give near enough thanks to the fine young men and women to serve our country so proudly.  Our cruise through the year wouldn't be complete without something patriotic, so last night, we gave everyone this cute little notepad holder designed by Valerie Jackson.  This would be a great Thank You gift to send to someone serving overseas, and works well for Memorial Day or 4^th of July.  You could even change the colors to use it for another occasion altogether.

This is the second year that Valerie has been an instructor with Crafty Neighbor scrapbooking, and I am so very happy to have her as an addition to our team.  Valerie is a Close to My Heart consultant and posts many of her wonderful projects on her blog Creative Sanctuary.  Valerie is also an organizer for the Dallas Crafters Marathon meet-up group that hosts monthly 3-day crafting weekends in Plano, Texas.

Bon Voyage!

It’s finally here!  The day of our embarkation has arrived!  After all the cold weather in the metroplex, the girls and I are looking forward to a few days in the sun on our scrapbooking cruise to Roatan, Honduras, Belize City, Belize, and, of course, Cozumel, Mexico.  I sometimes wonder if the cruise lines have some kind of special arrangement with Mexico that requires all ships in the Western Caribbean to stop at the island of Cozumel – we go there every cruise, and I don’t think that will ever change.

One thing on our cruises that has changed is the level of service provided by Crafty Neighbor.  Over the last few years, we have added lots of amenities to our scrapbooking cruises, including what we affectionately refer to as “Pillow Gifts”.  Pillow Gifts are a small gift from the Crafty Neighbor instructors to our scrapbooking guests which we have arranged with the ship’s crew to be delivered to their rooms each night.  Since this is usually done around the time that the steward turns down the beds, they tend to set them out along with the towel animals and ship newsletter, and thus they are refered to as Pillow Gifts.

I like to extend the gift-giving even further.  I really want my cruise guests to feel special and to feel like they got a really good value for their money.  Since we recommend that our guests arrive in the Galveston area the day before we sail, we usually arrange a meet and greet with them to get to know everyone before we sail.  As a way of saying thanks, I have started the habit of giving them a special pillow gift as well.  Obviously, I can’t get into their hotel rooms to deliver the gifts, but the thought is still the same. 

So last night we met up in Galveston before the cruise and I gave everyone there a little pillow gift to say thank you for being here.  I like to make the gifts special and meaningful.  For this year’s hotel pillow gift, I selected this little suitcase made from a simple matchbox pattern. 

If you look closely at the suitcase, you can see there are a lot of fine details.  It looks very intricate, but it was actually very simple.  I even made “bumper stickers” for each suitcase which were customized for the number of cruises each person has sailed with us.  For instance, one of our new cruisers gets stickers for Honduras, Belize, Cozumel and Royal Caribbean, while my roommate and former Crafty Neighbor, Stephanie, has stickers for all of the above plus Progresso, Jamaica, Grand Cayman, and Carnival.  I also have stickers for the emblem of each successive cruise.  I even put a little luggage tag on each one with their name.

Inside the boxes, I made a little “Cruise Survival Kit” that included some things like clothespins, safety pins, paper clips, lip balm, a bandaid, and more, along with a stamped message.

If you like this suitcase, look for a kit to be available some time after the cruise with complete instructions.  We will also have the instructions available for download as well.

I hope you enjoyed our first pillow gift from the cruise!  Stay tuned tomorrow as our grand adventure really begins!

All Treats, No Tricks!

Welcome to Crafty Neighbor’s “Neighborhood Gossip” blog, a proud participant in the “All Treats, No Tricks Blog Hop”!  To start at the beginning of the hop, please visit The Little Blue House where you can learn how you can win one of 11 FABULOUS PRIZES.

For those of you visiting my little blog for the first time, please allow me to introduce myself.  My name is Cindy Murray, and I am the owner of Crafty Neighbor and Crafty Neighbor Travel.

I often call myself an event organizer, but really, Crafty Neighbor is so much more than that.  I host crops, retreats, classes, workshops, and even scrapbooking cruises and garage sales, but my real mission is to bring crafters together and support the scrapbooking and paper-crafting industries by providing fun and unique opportunities to learn new techniques, scrapbook at different venues, and meet new friends.  I also run this blog, which I like to view as a source of news, tips, tricks, and inspiration for scrapbooking and paper-crafting of all kinds. 

Since the topic of this blog hop is “All Treats, No Tricks”, I thought I would share a couple of Halloween treat holders with you today.  These are both really simple projects, and require very little supplies.  They’re great for party favors or to surprise your coworkers.  I filled them with my favorite treat, Reese’s Cups.

The small holder is super simple and made from a 6” x 6” square of double-sided paper using Stampin’ Up’s Simply Scored Diagonal Plate.  The instructions are available for download by clicking here.

The other two boxes are variations of the Criss-Cross Box created by Nicole Heady for PaperTrey Ink.  You can find Nicole’s box on her blog, and you can download her template there as well. 

For the spider box, I just put my treats directly inside the box, but I also wanted to show you how to make the box work for smaller candies, too, by using a clear cellophane treat bag.  Just put the bag in the box, fill with your favorite candies, and close with a pull-tab or twist tie.

Tip: I used Stampin' Up's Tiny Tag punch to make my "Boo" tag.
It's easier to punch the hole for your string before you punch your tag!

I hope you liked my projects.  If you would like to see some of my previous posts and projects, scroll down to the “Blog Archives” on the left, or you can search for posts by specific topics just below that.  Feel free to leave a comment and tell me what you think!  You can also find us on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/craftyneighbor, on Pinterest at http://www.pinterest.com/c1ndyluhu/, or on the web at http://www.craftyneighbor.com.

Thanks so much for visiting my blog today!  Be sure to subscribe using one of the links on the left to be eligible to win one of our awesome prizes!  My contribution will be a

$50 gift certificate
and a grab-bag of embellishments!

Now, hop on over to the Very Vintage Retreat, to collect your next treat!