Missing In Action

**WARNING - Long post**

Sorry I have been MIA for a while, I have been so busy that I hadn't even had a chance to let you know that I was going on holidays!  Too late now though, I am back.  We had an AMAZING time on an Alaskan Cruise.  My grandma has wanted to go on a cruise like this since I was 2 and a couple of years ago 5 of us decided that if she wanted to go, that we wanted to be the ones to take her.  I wasn't really sure about it when we were planning it, but it was very relaxing, we were treated like royalty and I got to spend the whole week with Gram.  I have a LOT of photos that I hope to post a little later.  Right now I will start with this one.
Here is a picture of her and I together on the back of the ship just as we were leaving Vancouver.

I love this lady!  We are just over 60 years apart, but we are so close.  She is my dad's mom, but she is also one of my mom's best friends, so even though my parents are no longer together I get to see Gram at both parents homes when I go to my home town.

I was busy before we went getting ready to go.  I had a swap that I was involved that needed to be mailed before I went, which is why I didn't have a chance to post before I went on holidays.  I will post more about that later, I should be getting the swaps back in the mail soon.

I was also busy getting a few things ready for the cruise.  While on the ship you use your sea pass card for EVERYTHING!  It is your room key, you need it to get off and on the ship at ports, to order drinks and for anything that you wanted to buy while on the ship as there is no cash used on the ship.  Knowing this before we went, I was trying to figure out how I was going to carry this card with me at all time.  It wasn't too bad when we could wear jeans, but when wearing dress clothes (including dresses) and didn't have pockets we needed a way to carry them.  They are retractable ID badge holders and they worked wonderfully for what we needed,  but they weren't very pretty to be wearing with dress clothes.

This is what I came up with.

I made decorative paper flowers to cover the very plain, not so pretty, black retractable hooks.

I used punched 4 flowers - one Basic Black, one Very Vanilla and two Newspaper DSP.  The black and vanilla flowers I put through the crimper, smooshed and peeled the two layers of paper apart so that I had two of each.  I then inked the edges and stuck them together with the new Glitter Brads from the Holiday Mini.  These are my favorite flowers to make right now. 

Then to hide the sea-pass cards, I decided that I would do a Newspaper DSP card, matted with Basic Black and a colored Monogram to match the flowers. 

I cut the letters out with my cricut and then glazed them with a mixture of Glossy Accents and Dazzling Diamonds just to add a bit of extra bling.

I also made these thank you cards to take with me.  Whether they were appreciated or not, I thought it would be nice to make some little thank-you's for the people that served us on a regular basis.  I wanted something easy to make, easy to carry and easy for them to slip in their pocket so I made these 2.5" square cards with the Sweet Scoops stamp set from the Summer Mini and the sentiment is from the Trendy Trees set.

I have lots more to show you, just hope I will be able to find the time to post it all!  I will try to keep them shorter for you, but with being away for so long I just have SO much to say and as always so little time to say it in.