We decided while I was recovering from my fall last summer, that we needed something to look forward to, and this trip was our dream vacation. We’ve always wanted to see London and Paris, and cruising out of New York City across the Atlantic, sounded amazing. The trip was tough, six days at sea in 40 degree weather, in choppy waters, losing one hour per day, every one of those days, to ensure our time matched Ireland’s when we got there. I didn’t realize that losing one hour every day would be so much harder than losing or gaining six hours all at once, but it definitely was. We stayed in the Muse Hotel in NYC for one night before boarding the Getaway, and stayed a night at the end of the cruise in London at the Tower Hotel. The photo clip for this video is the view from our room in the Tower. I can’t say enough about both hotels and the ship from Norwegian Cruise Lines. We booked a Haven Suite that gave us pre-boarding and pre-disembarkation at every port. Haven residents have a dining area reserved for only Haven residents, and there’s also a special area for lounging and their own spa. The reason we booked the Haven suite is because my immune system isn’t very good, so when I am around a lot of people, or use a buffet line, I always seem to get sick. So by limiting the number of people I’m around, I was able to avoid getting sick on this trip. I hope you enjoy the little snippets of the places we visited and a walk through of the Haven.

The kind people at Lifescraft sent me three dies to try and I made three fun and frisky cards with them. They are offering my viewers a 25% discount code for orders made.

Link: https://lifescraft.com/

Discount code: SANDY25 for a 25% discount on your order

Lifescraft Metal Cutting Dies with Foldable Sunflower: https://lifescraft.com/products/lifescraft-metal-cutting-dies-with-foldable-sunflower

Lifescraft Circle of Wreath Flower Metal Cutting Die: https://lifescraft.com/products/lifescraft-circle-of-flowers-metal-cutting-dies

Lifescraft Happy Birthday to You Word Metal Cutting Dies: https://lifescraft.com/products/lifescraft-happy-birthday-to-you-word-metal-cutting-dies

Sunflower card: I cut the sunflower die with gold cardstock and then again with black cardstock. I folded the sunflower on the score lines the die already has cut into it, and then using the black cardstock, cut out the petal portion of the die cut on both ends. Adding glue to the front of the black petals (not all the way to the tips as you’ll want the ends to show), I attached the black petals behind the gold ones, making sure the black tips stick out over the ends. The center of the sunflower die has a ticket shape that comes out. I removed that ticket shaped piece and added a scrap behind it that is larger so I can glue it to the back of the ticket area to hold the ticket in place. I also glued a sentiment piece onto the center of the ticket before gluing it in place. I also took the centers of the sunflower from the black paper and glued them under the gold center of the flower. I took a matching A2 sized pre-made card base and glued the sunflower to the center and added a few black crystals to add more interest to the front of the card. I don’t know where I bought these as they’ve been in my stash for a long time.

Floral Wreath Card: I cut the floral wreath die out of off white and pink cardstock and laid them on Press ‘n Seal link: https://tinyurl.com/bdf4s8nj so the small pieces would stay in place once I pushed them out of the die. I glued the pink cardstock cut to 4″ x 5 1/4″ to the front of a pre-made card base 4 1/4 x 5 1/2″. It took a while, but I alternated gluing pink and off white die cuts back into their respective spots. Once all were in place, I added crystal flat back pieces into the centers of the flowers and added more into the center of the wreath. I used a sentiment that I fussy cut around to the center of the wreath then added some 3d flat back resin flowers (couldn’t find the exact ones I used but these are close to them, link: https://tinyurl.com/3m8949f8) using Glue Dots link: https://tinyurl.com/hpxw7pvu to adhere them. I added a strip of retired ribbon from Stampin’ Up to the left side of the card to complete it.

Happy Birthday card: I used two glittery cardstocks to create the die cut layer and cut the die from both. I quickly realized that I wouldn’t be able to separate the letters from the background as the paper has a plastic liner that even though the die cleanly cut through it, you can only take it apart by using scissors. I fussy cut “Happy” and “to you” as the word birthday was too small to cut out. I did not remove any of the letters from the lighter colored glitter cardstock, and glued the whole die cut to a piece of silver mirror cardstock cut to 7″ tall by 10″ wide and scored on the 10″ length at 5″ to make a 5 x 7″ card. I tear taped the entire die cut near the top of the front of the card base then using Tombow Mono Aqua glue, attached the letters I’d cut out. Then using a black Sharpie, I wrote over the word birthday and once it was dry, I used Glossy Accents on top to make the word birthday stand out. I took a piece of 5/8″ wide red glitter ribbon and glued it across the bottom portion of the front of the card and then took a piece of silver rick rack ribbon and glued it to the center of the red ribbon. I added another piece of the silver rick rack ribbon down the left side of the inside of the card to finish it off.

Thanks again to the nice people at Lifescraft, for sending me these dies and for offering a discount code for my viewers. As always, I’m not affiliated with Lifescraft and receive no monies from the sales of their products to my viewers.