I have to tell you that I truly loved the Stampin’ Up! Incentive Trip to Alaska. If you have never been to Alaska you have to go sometime. I can tell you about the places we have seen and what we love. It’s one place that I would visit again and try to see some different areas next time.
Not only was the destination wonderful but Stampin’ Up! spoils us for sure. Every day we had a Pillow Gift on our bed in the evening and every day we got to spin a prize wheel. At the start of the cruise we had a kickoff event where we saw stamping presentations, got prizes and got our copy of the 2018 Holiday Catalog! In the afternoon I sat out on the balcony with my wine and enjoyed browsing through all the new products. The Holiday catalog starts on September 5th – so it won’t be long now.
Catching up with friends and making new friends are also a highlight of the trip. Stampin’ Up! even organized a swap for everyone. Those that participated designed a card and made a bunch (I think it was about 26). We turn them in, they swap them out and hand us back a bag filled with 26 different cards from demonstrators all over the world that joined us on the trip. Today I thought I’d show you my swap card.
I really loved how this one turned out. It features my new favorite color Gray Granite. And I used the stamp set from the Notes of Kindness Card Kit. I love the kit and wanted to feature the stamp set in a different way. Here is a full list of supplies.
Supply List
Notes of Kindness Stamp set (part of the Notes of Kindness Card Kit)
Gray Granite card stock
Whisper White card stock
Gray Granite ink
Mossy Meadow ink
VersaMark ink
White Embossing Powder
Heat Tool
Whisper White Classic Weave Ribbon
Metallic Pearls
2-1/4″ Circle Punch
Stampin’ Dimensionals
This is one of my favorite photos from the trip and has similar colors in it. The grays, greens and white. This was taken from the Yukon Suspension Bridge over the river in Canada during one of our excursions.
It was an amazing view and an incredible excursion that I’d highly recommend. This was on our stop in Skagway.
Look at me – I’m a guest on the MDS Blog Hop!! Twice a month a group of Stampin’ Up! demonstrators join together to share their passion for digital designing with My Digital Studio. And my friend Cindy asked me to join them for the month of November! How cool is that? I’m so excited! These ladies are all very talented and have amazing digital projects. So come hop along and see what everyone has created. The theme for this week is PROJECT LIFE by MDS. Everyone will share different ways that they have combined My Digital Studio and Project Life.
If you follow my blog or even my Facebook Page you’ll know that at the end of the summer Greg and I took a trip to Alaska. It was a wonderful trip and we were gone for almost 2 weeks! I took well over 1000 photos! And I wanted to create a My Digital Studio photobook that would showcase our trip and all the photos. I love the simplicity of Project Life and wanted to use the concept in my book. I’ve played around with a few different things and think I finally found what I wanted.
This page is from the first morning of our trip. We arrived the evening before in Fairbanks and checked in to our hotel and met our tour guide. I’m going to go back and make a page for our travel day. My plan is to stay heavy on the photos and add journaling and other details on pages that precede each days photos. It may change as I go along but this is my current plan.
The photo book template that I used is an older one that came out before Project Life by Stampin’ Up! started but it has all the feel of Project Life and made a good base for starting – even though I removed all the elements and changed all the boxes to be photo boxes – I even did a bit of resizing for this page. Its called – The Best Year Photobook Template. I did use some words from the Everyday Adventure Project Life Digital Kit. I will be using more from that kit throughout my book.
Thanks for stopping by and be sure to hop through and see the amazing things that everyone else has done with this weeks theme. Next in line is Amber – click on the NEXT button below to hop over to her blog. Also make sure to come back for the next hop which will be on November 20th. I get to hop along for that one too! Thank you ladies for letting me join you!
Cindy and I also host a monthly MDS Virtual Digi Crop on Facebook – we have a group that you can join if you would like to participate along with us. Our next date is November 11 – that’s next week.
Now for some more about our Alaska trip. Day 3 started with the helicopter ride to the glacier that I wrote about last time. Afterwards we went back into the little town near Denali park to meet up with our bus and the rest of the group in our tour. They actually had to rearrange the schedule for the day so that we could take the helicopter excursion – we left later than planned due to the weather in the morning. I’m glad they didn’t leave our little group behind.
We got a quick bite of lunch and then the bus took us to the town of Talkeetna. The town is very small and the buses can’t drive through it so they stop at the edge where the train stops and let everyone out. Then you walk into town.
Three rivers meet in Talkeetna – the Susitna, Chulitna and Talkeetna. People come to the town in the summer for fishing, rafting and as a base camp for expeditions on Mt. McKinley.
The tiny town doesn’t have a real mayor but they do have an honorary mayor – its a cat named Stubbs. We didn’t actually get to see him – but I did look in the general store where he is supposed to be. I found this picture of him though.
We walked around town – luckily the rain stopped for us. Strolled through some of the shops and the bakery and made a stop in the Brewery – Greg got some Raspberry Wheat beer and I got Salmon dip.
Our group boarded the bus and drove to Anchorage where we stayed the night. Since the skies were clearing we were able to see the Chugach Mountains.
Along the highway they have signs for how many moose have been killed on the highway. Over 100 moose each year are killed by cars. Anchorage is the most populous city in Alaska and has about 40% of the states’ population.
Greg and I took a walk down to the park at Cook’s inlet.
We also found this statue of a whale while we were walking through the city.
I have uploaded two videos from our helicopter flight to the glacier.
The first is after we landed on the glacier. I walked out away from everyone and tried to do a 360 degree turn all the way around to show where we were. The pilot is speaking in the background to the rest of the group.
The second video is when we take off from the glacier and then fly back out through the mountains.
I’ll be back with more about Alaska and also some stamping projects coming soon too!
I’m back to share more about our Alaska trip – Day 3 we decided to take an extra excursion in the Denali Park area – a helicopter flight and Glacier Landing! Quite the exciting excursion! I was a bit unsure about the helicopter – I’d never been in one before and wasn’t sure what it would be like – I’m not a roller coaster person and was thinking it would be something like that. I was pleasantly surprised to find out it was NOT at all like a roller coaster. And perhaps it depends on the pilot but ours was great and the flight was so smooth. I sat in the front by the door on the right. Greg was in the back in the center but said he could see without any problems. There were 3 couples plus our pilot – 3 of us in the front and 4 people in the back.
Our adventure began at the heliport on the Nenana River. Everyone had to be weighed so they could put us in the helicopter and keep everything in balance. They also gave us special glacier boots to wear over our regular shoes.
It was another rainy sort of day with lots of cloud cover. Up on the glacier it was snowing. I have photos to post now and some videos I’ll post later once I can get them loaded to youtube.
The area we were in was Yanert Icefield and Mt. Deborah. According to our pilot who has been flying these trips all summer – the glacier that he took us too has only had around 20 people on it all year. Once we landed and he turned off the helicopter and we got out it was incredibly quiet up there. So peaceful.
Looking at these pictures it was like having summer, fall and winter all in one morning! I hope you are enjoying the photos of our trip. There is still lots more to come!
Hi! I am a Stampin’ Up! independent demonstrator in Milton, Georgia. I love being creative and want to share it with you! On my blog I will share creative ideas using Stampin’ Up! products and you’ll also hear about my family and my dogs.
I look forward to helping you get your creative juices flowing!
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