Hi Everyone!! It has been such a busy time around our home as of late! As most of you know, Chris and I just returned from our back to back Voyage of the Glaciers cruises in Alaska with Princess. I’ve been diligently working on my blog series for that trip, sharing with you a time that I have already tucked safely away in my heart and mind, I’ll be able to conjure up those memories any time I need to be transported to one of the most gorgeous places on the planet. If you haven’t happened to see my blog posts about our trip up to this point, here is a link that holds all of the links to the blogs that I’ve written so far (check back often, I have a long way to go to finish that series):
Before we departed for our trip, I was diligently working on getting my Fall Decor up and in place; I worked very hard for the couple of weeks before we left. And I was successful…whew…I managed to get all of the indoor spaces completely finished! That said, I not only got my decor into place, I also created YouTube Videos of every craft and space that I created. First, let me share some pictures with you of our home decorated up for Fall, then, I will give you a link to my YouTube Channel’s “Arlynn’s Country Craft Corner” 2017 Fall Home Tour Playlist that holds 20, yes, count them *20* videos of me bringing my creations to life such as Cozy Corners, wreaths, lantern centerpieces, lantern swags, etc…To say I worked hard, well, that is an understatement…haha. 😉 BUT, of course I thrive on my crafting and decorating, so it was definitely a labor of love!! 🙂 So here we go with some pictures:
Okie dokie, here are some pictures of the Family Room…
And here are some more shots of how I decorated up the rest of the back side of the house, moving through the family room, into the kitchen, over to the kitchen eating area, the kitchen hutch and desk, and the powder room.
Okie dokie…That did it for the back of the house. I was very happy with how everything turned out!! I utilized a lot of my old decor and mixed it in with some of the new things that I had purchased and crafted. I had a huge feeling of accomplishment, but, I wasn’t done yet! It was time to soldier on and move into the rooms that sit on the front of our home and in which I prefer a lighter, softer, and calmer color palette. Instead of utilizing the the more traditional, bolder, oranges, reds, greens, and yellows like what we’ve just seen, I’d be utilizing soft silvers, creams, grays, blues, & khakis in the living and dining room as well as in the foyer that sits between the two rooms. Let me show you some pictures:
As I mentioned above, I did all of the decorating that you see in these pictures prior to leaving for our cruise, and when we returned home, I went ahead and finished the outdoor spaces. Here is was I completed just last week:
And that finished up my Fall decorating for 2017! I am so happy that I took that 2 weeks before we left on our cruise to get the entire inside of the house finished. I had forgotten just how much work it is to switch everything out and recreate the wheel for the next Season. BUT, that said, I’m super happy with how everything looks now and I’m even happier that I was able to create an entire Playlist of me showing y’all *in person* how I brought it all to fruition. Actually, do y’all know what? It was Chris’ idea for me to start at the very beginning of my process, my first video begins with me in our basement showing where and how I store all of the Seasonal decor. I literally take you through my entire process in that Playlist of videos…so, without further adieu, here is a link that will take you through my process, as I said, it is 20 videos strong:
OHHHHHH wait!!! There is ONE more wreath that I created that is not included in that Fall Playlist, this one (as I said, I’ve been b-u-s-y over here…lol):
And that my friends is, as they say, *that*. 🙂 U-n-t-i-l I start decorating for Christmas in a few weeks….ahhhhhhhh….HELP! LOL 😉 JUST Kidding, y’all know I will love doing it once I get started!! So for now, because I worked so hard before we left for Alaska, I will be able to sit back and write my Alaska Cruise Blog Series until it is time to switch everything out for the most wonderful time of the year *Christmas*!!
**In crafting there are no mistakes, only unique creations**
I’m telling y’all, there were times on this cruise that I felt like I’d never been on an Alaskan cruise 4 other times in the past. I don’t know why that is, but, this time, I seemed to pause many more times to take in the gorgeousness that surrounded us at just about every turn. Such was the case on the morning that we cruised oh so quietly into Juneau Harbor. There was a mist that was just dwelling in the crooks and crannies of the mountains and hovering over the city of Juneau…it looked almost mesmerizing. I had never seen it look the way it did that morning and in addition, I did not remember the Harbor being so pretty. Here are a couple of pictures that we captured that morning:
The Norwegian Jewel beat us into port…Here she is sitting prettily in the mist:
I stepped out on our balcony and did a Facebook Live video that morning…I’ll post that here for y’all to take a peek and listen at:
Once that mist lifted, the blue skies appeared and it looked as if we were going to have a lovely day in Juneau….Here are some pictures of Juneau Harbor as you look across that bridge to Douglas Island and beyond. Chris caught these while I was getting ready for the day:
Here is the Princess Patter for that day:
And here was my choice of outfit for the day…I added a jacket to this choice because I knew that it would be quite cool on the water when we went whale watching (and it was):
We were so looking forward to this adventure! In the past, we had always taken the Mendenhall Glacier and Whale Quest excursion through Princess (4 times), and those trips were absolutely amazing, but, this time with Harv and Marv’s, we’d be on a much smaller boat (pros and cons…I’ll lament upon that further in a bit). We had made arrangements for this excursion online before we came, so we knew just what to look for once we disembarked and were on the dock…a Harv and Marv’s employee in a bright orange jacket holding a sign…we found that fellow pretty easily, I have not one picture of him though because I was busily chatting along with him and the others who’d be on the excursion with us that day. Anyway, he led us to a van where we climbed aboard and were transported over to Auke Bay and to where our smaller boat and her Captain were waiting to take us out on the water to find some humpback whales and as you’ll see, a few other creatures as well. 🙂 I neglected to take a picture (slacker that I am…lol) of that van, but, here is a picture of one just like we rode in that I pulled off of their website:
The driver gave great commentary as she drove us through Juneau on our way to Auke Bay, and we chatted with the folks from other cruise lines who she had picked up on her way to us. It was quite an enjoyable little trip. It took us every bit of 1/2 hour to get to our destination. When we arrived, all we could see was that mist that we had seen while coming into Juneau Harbor. It was ALL over the place. Come to find out, a family that was in the van with us had been scheduled for their whale watching trip that morning, but their boat Captain cancelled that trip because of the mist and thankfully there was room on our boat for them. The mist was *starting* to lift, but, it was an eerie little trip at first…haha…not.even.kidding. Here is one of Harv and Marv’s boats, and we rode in one very similar to this one:
I believe ours was called “The Alaskan”, here is a picture that I took of the inside:
It was quite a nice little boat, very clean, and the employees that we’d come in contact with including the Naturalist on board and the Captain were so very nice and welcoming!! This is a GREAT company and they bend over backwards to make sure your trip is awesome!!
Now, some thoughts about going on the smaller boat.
~Cons: It is a rockier ride…*much* rockier than on one of the bigger catamarans that we’ve always been on before, so if you are at all prone to sea-sickness (we are not), this probably isn’t the excursion for you. And it was a bit more difficult to steady ourselves to take our pictures. In all honesty as well, Chris missed having an upper deck which always provided him a higher vantage point for taking pictures.
~Pros: The personal touch is something that I enjoyed greatly, the Naturalist took time out to answer all of my geeky questions. He was a wealth of information that I just drank in. I told him about the bubble net feeding that we’d witnessed in Snow Passage and we figured out together that we had seen one of the whales in the books they carry with them of the whales that are regularly seen in Alaskan waters. Here are the pages we were scouring trying to find that whale tail from just the evening before:
(And just a reminder picture, here is the whale tail that we saw from the Coral in Snow Passage, a match to #1758 in his book):
To say that I was excited about that was an understatement. 🙂 So yes, a big PRO for me…Also, the smaller group of people was very nice, I believe we only had 16 people aboard. We all got to know one another pretty well and it was a nice atmosphere. Our Captain Gabe was *excellent*! He was determined to give us the experience of a lifetime, so we headed straight through that mist that was hanging over the water (no pictures…ugh to me) and was very successful at finding us some whales to view which of course was the biggest PRO of all. The first Humpback that we came upon was sleeping…haha…and was not awakened by our presence. It just rolled around and took breaths and obviously did not have a care in the world:
We moved on from this sleeping giant and were almost out to the Lynn Canal which apparently has a pretty intense current running through it which gathers up tons of good eats for the whales…and that is where we hit the jackpot. Here are some of the whale shots we caught on this very special day:
Here is one little video that I caught:
Well, it was just about time to return to shore, but, before we did, Captain Gabe took us over to this Coast Guard buoy on which Stellar Sea Lions *always* are vying for position to lay upon. 🙂 Here are some pictures and then I’ll add a little video that I took of these funny, loud, and pretty lazy creatures. I LOVED seeing them “chat” (honk and holler) at one another:
OMGosh, did they put on a show or what?!! I guess that’s what they do all day, every day, in-between meals. 🙂
As we were heading back in, the Captain pointed out Mendenhall Glacier to us…WOW, was it ever gorgeous to gaze upon from the water!! I was blown away…This is the first time that I’d ever seen it from that vantage point. Here is a picture that Chris captured:
Oh what a wonderful time we had had on Auke Bay with the folks at Harv and Marv’s. Here is a little souvenir that they gave to us as we were disembarking. BTW, we do give tips to our excursion hosts, so we slipped Captain Gabe a $10 bill as we were disembarking.
We climbed aboard a motor coach for the trip back to the cruise dock, the driver stopped so that we could get out and take a few more shots of Mendenhall Glacier:
And on we traveled back to the cruise ship dock:
Then the driver dropped us off at the end of the cruise dock–Traffic was awful on this day and he had offered to take us right back to our ship, but, we ended up telling him not to worry about and we walked on down the dock. Our next stop on our way back to the ship was going to be an amazing place to eat right there on the dock on our way to the ship and that wasTracy’s King Crab Shack, Here are some of the sights we saw while walking to Tracy’s.
And there is Tracy’s to the left:
Here is the menu, we both chose the “Crab Shack Combo” and Chris got an extra king crab leg:
To say that we had an awesome meal is a huge understatement! It was delicious!! As you can see, we ate outside in the sunlight…it was lovely. 🙂
It was time for us to head back “home” to the Coral Princess now; for the first time I wasn’t too sad to do so because I knew that we’d be right back here the next week. 🙂 I doubted if we’d eat at Tracy’s again though (it was pretty pricey…haha), so we caught these pictures as we were fixin’ to walk back to the ship:
There is Mount Robert’s Tramway:
And look who we saw gazing down at us from the trees. 🙂
Do y’all know what? I was pooped! But, we’d had a wonderful day in Juneau. I got to see the tops of the mountains for the first time ever (on this our 5th visit to the city), I went on a new whale watching adventure on a small boat with awesome people, I got to eat king crab legs outside on a beautiful sunny day with the love of my life. What more could a girl ask?! Not much I’d say, not much. 🙂 If memory serves, we gathered ourselves up some pizza later on that evening (Princess has the BEST pizza btw), settled in and just relaxed on our balcony for the rest of the evening. Again, I felt so blessed and thankful that we were able to be in that spot at that moment in time and I drank in every single second, holding on to those memories, tucking them deep inside my mind and heart. I know that sounds so sappy, but that is truly how I felt on that day.
Okie dokie, our next stop was Skagway! Wait till y’all see what I have to share with you from our adventures on that special day! Sneak peek:
***If I rise on the wings of the dawn, if I settle on the far side of the sea, even there Your hand will guide me…Psalm 139***
Chris, as always was up super early on this the morning that we were oh so quietly sailing into Ketchikan; a quirky, colorful, little town that holds many sweet memories for me. Here is a video that Chris caught right before sunrise:
I was still snoozing away as Chris was walking around the ship taking pictures and gathering up his first cup of coffee from the International Cafe.
My gracious it looked like it was going to be a gorgeous day in Ketchikan! We were surprised and felt extremely lucky that this was the case as it is usually raining and cloudy in Ketchikan. I was actually able to take a bit of a live video for the Facebook “Alaska Cruises on Princess” Group (I’m one of the Admins in that group)—Feel free to go to that link and join if you’d like to do so). 🙂 Here is a portion of that live video:
And then as promised in that video, I come back for a 2nd Facebook live video…In this one I start in our Stateroom D407 and give a very quick room tour:
ANYway, I finally pulled myself away from talking to the folks (who I adore) in that Group and I got myself showered and dressed for the day. Here is the outfit that I chose:
Here is the Princess Patter for the day:
Okie dokie, it was now time for us to head on out and walk over to the Aleutian Ballad for our day’s excursion. As you heard me mention in the video, we would not be in Ketchikan for all that long on this day, so when making arrangements for an excursion, it was an easy choice. We love this “The Bering Sea Crab Fishermen’s Tour”. The crew never ceases to entertain us with their harrowing stories of their time on the Bering Sea when they were Crab Fishing–not to mention the fact that I’m a huge fan of The Deadliest Catch tv show, so I’m a bit star-struck every time we take this tour. 🙂
I took a little video while we were walking over to the Aleutian Ballad:
And here are some pictures that we clicked off while on our way:
When we climbed aboard the Aleutian Ballad, it was like I was home again..haha…We decided to climb on up to the upper deck and enjoy the views from a different vantage point than we ever had done in the past. And to my surprise, I was actually able to take a bit of live video as we were sailing away out of the harbor. Here is a snippet of that video:
And here are some pictures of our time on this wonderful excursion.
The Captain slowed the boat down as we passed “Annette Island” an island that is home to the only remaining Indian Reservation in Alaska. Bald Eagles also nest right there on that Island and the indigenous folks encourage and appreciate the Ballad coming by and providing a snack to the Eagles…Now, on this day, we only saw a couple of Eagles because one of the crew told me that they consider the “snacks” that they provide as pretty insignificant. Most of the Eagles had traveled to where the bounty of food was located…there was a Salmon run happening when we were there and trust me, the little snacks that the crew threw out did not in any way deter the Eagles from heading over for a more tasty and much larger meal in the Salmon. 🙂 Chris did manage to get a few amazing pictures of those couple of Eagles, here they are:
And here is one of their massive nests!! Did you know that Eagles take a mate and remain with that mate for their entire life? Yes, indeed they do. Also, did you know that the Bald Eagle doesn’t get that beautiful white head until they are 5 years old? Yes, indeed that is true…I’m just full of fun facts huh? 😉 ANYway, here is that nest.
As we cruised through these beautiful calm waters of the Inside Passage, I had to stop and just take it all in. I again found myself tearing up at the beauty and grandeur that *is* Alaska. I again pinched myself to make sure that I wasn’t well ensconced in a very sweet dream. And I once again drank in every sight and sound and said a very sincere and heartfelt thank you to the Lord for allowing us to be right there in that place once again. Chris happened to catch a picture of me was I was lamenting upon our blessings…here is that shot:
Our time on the Aleutian Ballad was coming to an end and I was quite humbled once again after I heard the crew’s amazing stories of their time doing the deadliest job on the planet…crab fishing. Here is our picture with 2 of the crew on the Aleutian Ballad and some more pictures of the sights we saw as we were cruising back into Ketchikan.
We did do a little bit of shopping on our way back to the Coral Princess, but, we were moving so fast that I didn’t take one picture. I did get a jacket though…it has “Alaska” embroidered on it, it is purple and reverses to navy blue; here I am wearing it in the navy blue.
We climbed back on board our big, beautiful cruise ship and headed out onto our balcony and watched as the crew prepared for our sail away…I was a bit sad to be leaving, but, this time, that sadness was quelled by the thought that we’d be right back here in a week on the Southbound cruise. And then this little bit of excitement interrupted my thoughts…As y’all know, if you are not on board at the time of sail away the ship ***will*** leave you behind…so everyone is always super careful and makes arrangements with that “All-Aboard” time well plastered in their minds. It is obvious that these 2 people thought that doing a bit of shopping *almost* caused them to be left behind. Yikes!!
And here are some of the sights we saw as we sailed away…
Later that day, we were heading through a place called Snow Passage. We’d seen on our Princess Patter that our Naturalist would be doing some commentary from the Bridge. (Btw…all Princess ships have a Naturalist that is on board for their Alaska cruises…we had one on our Hawaii cruise as well):
So we had eaten at the Buffet when we got back on board from our excursion and had gathered a cup of hot chocolate for me and a cup of coffee for Chris and we were out on our balcony with cameras at the ready so that we’d be well prepared to catch any marine life that might want to show themselves to us and we cruised through Snow Passage…AND boy oh boy did we ever get a treat!!! Here are some of the pictures that we captured of the majestic Humpback whale…and yes, these were taken from our balcony on the Coral–that said, I did crop them down quite a bit (Chris has an amazing zoom lens). 🙂
This is a special whale tail to me…I’m going to jump ahead in my time line for just a second here. The day after we caught these pictures, we went on a whale watching excursion out of Juneau and I had a chat with the Naturalist on board our whale watching boat and he showed me this book which contains all of the whale tails that they regularly see in Alaska and have categorized. I came back and compared a picture that I captured out of that book and low and behold this is one of the whales that they have pictured and categorized…Check out number #1758 in that Naturalist’s book of whale tails that are Seasonally seen in Alaska!! I was blown away that I had actually SEEN one and was able to tell him where so that he could add it to that whale’s information!
All righty, we’d had a very full, very special day in Alaska…My head did not hit the pillow before I was asleep and dreaming of what our next adventure might entail. This lady was again in awe of the magnificent place in which we were traveling. Life was good!
Next time, I’ll share with you our day in Juneau and our adventure on that whale watching boat in Auk Bay. 🙂 Here is a sneak peek at some of the sights we were able to put our eyes on that day:
***If I rise on the wings of the dawn, if I settle on the far side of the sea, even there Your hand will guide me…Psalm 139***
Chris and I had done 4 Alaska Southbound Voyage of the Glaciers cruises in previous years, so we were well versed in that particular itinerary. So when I woke up on this our first full day aboard the Coral on this our first Northbound Voyage of the Glaciers cruise, I was excited for the *new* itinerary. Today would be a “Sea Day”, but, as you’ll see, we kept ourselves quite busy. Of course we were up super early because we were still on East Coast time…and this is what greeted us to say good morning. The sunrises and sunsets on the water, not to mention in Alaska, are amazing!
I was not going to be in a rush to do anything on this day, nor was I going to plan anything to do on this day. It was nice to just putter through getting myself ready without having some place to be at a certain time…ahhhh, I was finally starting to relax! 🙂 This is the outfit I chose for this day:
After I was up and dressed, we decided to just trip on down to the IC (International Cafe) to get a quick breakfast–and another cup of tea. Chris had already been out and around the ship and gotten his first cup of coffee and had brought me back a cup of hot water with a tea bag–something he did for me every single morning on these cruises:
Here is a picture of the coffee bar that is attached to the IC–OF course this is where Chris used his Coffee Card every day, and I would also go and get a specialty hot chocolate (YUM) that came “free” with my “Soda and More Package”:
We had some fog move in after sunrise that morning…it was quite eerie and we heard the ship’s horn blowing at regular intervals for quite a while. Chris also caught some really neat pictures. Here is a picture of a cruise ship that we dubbed “The Ghost Ship” that was following us:
And then these beautiful creatures arrived…At this moment in time we didn’t know exactly what they were, but, later that day, I purchased the Alaska Cruise Companion book from one of the shops (I’ll show you a picture of that book in a bit), and in there local marine life is listed and we determined that these beauties were “White Sided Pacific Dolphins”. Chris didn’t think that these pictures would turn but, they’ve become some of my very favorite ones that he captured on this trip. They were having a blast and there were a tons of them—SO much fun to watch them frolic and play!
As the fog was lifting, a Pilot was brought on board — I’m not totally sure why on this day, but, usually they are brought on board to help the Captain navigate through waters in which the Pilot is extremely familiar. Regardless, here is the Pilot boat approaching the Coral, this time it approached on the Starboard side of the ship:
I then sat down to go through the Princess Patter to see what was going on throughout the day:
And inside the Patter that day, there was a Shopping Spotlight flyer– I didn’t go to any of the jewelry events, but, I did hit up the Shops on board and the Holiday Store at Sea sale:
On my way to do a bit of browsing and shopping I ran into two folks that I knew out of our Alaska Cruises on Princess Facebook Group…I’ll tell ya, I was thrilled to meet Janet and Phil!!! SUCH sweet and lovely people!!!
I stood there and talked to them for quite a little while and then I tripped on over to the Atrium and to where the onboard shops and current sale was happening. Here are some things that I purchased, first, I stopped into Calypso Cove…
And picked myself up one of those “Alaska Companion Books” that I spoke about above:
You’ll also find this map included inside this book. It delineates the routes that Princess Alaska cruises take (the North and Southbound Voyage of the Glaciers cruises, the Seattle roundtrip cruises, & the San Francisco roundtrip cruises). It also includes Waypoints and shows you pictures of the wildlife one might see if they look outside at those particular times. I hung it up on our Staterooms walls and I cannot tell you how many times we referred to that map on our journey. 🙂
This is the page in the book where we looked up those Pacific White Sided Dolphins:
And then later that day we observed this Minke whale right off of our balcony. At first we thought that it was a Humpback whale, but we’ve seen many of those gorgeous HUGE creatures in the past and we knew it wasn’t big enough to be a Humpback, and our Alaska Cruise Companion book confirmed that we were right and clued us in to what it was:
Okay, back to my little shopping foray. 😉 As most of you know, one of our daughters Christin is a Kindergarten teacher, and I am always on the look-out for books to purchase for her class, books that might just get those sweet young minds geared up to go to Alaska one day. Here is one of the books that I purchased that day, also in Calypso Cove:
I found a Coral Princess magnet, Christmas ornament, and shopping bag as well:
And then last but not least from Calypso Cove, I couldn’t resist “Stanley the Stowaway” bear, I grabbed up that cutie pie right away (Chris just rolled his eyes and grinned at me….lol). Here he is:
Then I zipped on across the beautiful Atrium to “Essence” and I purchased my Clinique makeup. I always wait until I am on board a Princess ship to purchase my moisturizing lotion, yes, it *is* cheaper on board. And I bought an eye shadow pallet this time as well.
The ship was a buzz of activity on this day, one time when I was walking through the Atrium, a couple of the onboard chefs were putting on a fruit carving event…I stopped and took a little video and watch them perform magic with all sorts of melons and fruits, talk about talented, I was blown away!! 🙂
Here are the finished carvings up close:
Chris and I decided to do a load of laundry on this day as well. There are laundromats on most Passengers decks, on the Coral, they are located toward the aft. I always take my own Tide pods and Downey dryer sheets, if you want to purchase detergent and dryer sheets on board, it will cost $1.50 in “tokens” that you purchase with your cruise card out of a vending machine that is located in the laundromat. In addition, you will need to purchase tokens to run the washers and dryers, each load will cost you $6, $3 to wash and $3 to dry. The use of the iron and ironing boards is free. Here are some pictures for you:
I wanted to go and check out that Holiday at Sea sale, and can y’all believe it, I didn’t buy one thing?!! Go me! lol BUT, I did click off a few pictures of what they were offering for sale that day:
Here is a picture of the Coral Princess’ Atrium, she is such a beautiful ship that is in great shape!
I clicked off some more pictures as I made my way around the ship that day, here is just a hodgepodge of some of the shots I took:
That fog stayed with us a good part of the day:
We stopped to listen to these fellows one time as we were walking through the Atrium:
And then later in the day, we saw these little birdies scooting across the water…We spent a ton of time out on our balcony…So calm, so serene, and just lovely.
I know that we went to the Horizon Court for dinner that evening because again, we were pretty tuckered out from all of the traveling…and I didn’t click off one picture…go me! lol After we were finished eating, we came back to our Stateroom, watched a movie and crashed again…early. I have absolutely no complaints about our Sea Day. 🙂
Next up in Episode #5, I’ll tell you all about our first Port of call, Ketchikan, Alaska…a quirky, colorful, wonderful town! We’d be doing the Bering Sea Crab Fishermen’s tour–again, this would be our 3rd time doing it. 🙂
Okay, where did I leave off, ahhhhh, yes, it was finally time for Embarkation! Trust me y’all, I had been planning, waiting, planning, dreaming, planning, planning, and planning some more for this trip for over a year. One of Chris’ nicknames for me is “The Planner”, Not.Even.Kidding…he chuckles at me all of the time for my planning ways. 😉 So as we traveled via motor coach from the airport to Canada Place I was getting more and more excited as each second passed, and when I laid eyes on that beautiful Coral Princess, I just about hopped out of my seat with excitement…like I mentioned before, I felt like a little child on Christmas Eve…a-n-t-i-c-i-p-a-t-i-o-n of the memories that I knew were getting ready to be made.
So our bus barreled down underneath of Canada Place and pulled into a parking space, we sat there for a second and then a Princess Representative came onto the bus and gave us instructions as to what would be happening next. He told us that we were to head on into the cruise terminal and straight on over to check-in–there were plenty of Princess/Canada Place employees directing our route.
First, as you read that sign, Chris and I didn’t have to worry about our baggage because if y’all remember, we had dropped our luggage off with the Princess Rep at the airport and it was most likely transported separately and already on board or in a holding area waiting at the ship. Now, moving on along, because Chris and I are at the “Platinum” level in the Captain’s Circle program (which just means that we’ve spent a copious amount of money with Princess and have cruised a lot) we were sent directly to a Princess “Preferred” Check-In representative. Normally, we would have been directed to a “Priority Boarding” waiting room, but, because they had started the Embarkation process, we were whisked straight over to the check-in. Before I go further, here is an explanation of what one receives when they reach the Platinum level in the Captain’s Circle:
“Complimentary Cruise Atlas^
Every year you will automatically receive a copy of our Princess Cruise Atlas. It includes details on all itineraries and sailings for that year, making it easy for you to plan ahead.
Preferred Check-In
When you arrive at the port, don’t wait in line. You, along with your family or guests that are traveling with you in the same stateroom will be invited to use the Preferred Check-In desk to help expedite your embarkation.
Platinum Disembarkation Lounge
In recognition of your loyalty, and to make your last morning with us more enjoyable, we invite Platinum Members to use the Platinum Disembarkation Lounge, offering light refreshments and peace while you await disembarkation.
Complimentary Internet Credit
Each Platinum Princess Cruises Captain’s Circle member will receive a complimentary Internet credit to be used either on the computers in our Internet Cafés or wireless Internet on the passenger’s personal wireless device. The amount of complimentary Internet is determined by the length of the sailing.
Voyages 7 days or less, 150 minutes
Voyages 8-20 days, 250 minutes
Voyages 21+ days, 500 minutes
As a Platinum Captain’s Circle Member you will be recognized as such when you initially log on to the Internet onboard. Upon the initial log on you will see a screen which shows you how many complimentary minutes you are eligible to receive. In addition, you will have the opportunity to select more minutes at the available rates. This offer is only available at the time of the initial log on.
Only usage exceeding the allotted amounts will be charged to your onboard folio. The Internet activation fee of $3.95 is waived for Platinum and Elite Princess Captain’s Circle Members.
*Members are eligible for a higher tier on the next cruise following completion of necessary cruises and/or cruise days. Land portion of cruisetour does not apply. ^For UK and AU/NZ Members, your Cruise Atlas is mailed out upon request. UK Members please call 0845 355 0065, AU Members please call 13 24 88, NZ Members please call 0800 780 717. #Subject to availability. Not combinable with any other Internet offer.”
And here is what our cruise card looks like…These cards are going to go away (I’m betting) pretty soon as Princess is rolling out the Ocean Medallion across the fleet in the coming months. If you’d like to read about the Ocean Medallion, here is a little LINK for you.
Anyway, here is what my card looked like:
The sticker that you see on the card is one that shows the waiters/waitresses/bar folks that I got the “Soda & More” Package. Here is a blurb about what I was able to get because I had the “Unlimited Soda & More Package”:
“Indulge yourself with this premium Unlimited Soda & More Package, entitling you to unlimited fountain soft drinks, plus mocktails, juices, and complimentary hot chocolate throughout your cruise. Price includes service charge. Package must be purchased for full length of voyage, cannot be shared, is non-transferable, and is non-refundable within 3 days of sailing.”
ANYhoot…We also filled out our health questionnaire as well…we were moving so fast through this process that I did not have one second to click off a picture of that… <sigh>. It in effect asks you whether or not you’ve been sick in the last so many days and such.
We were also given a little map of the Coral Princess that was folded up to be the same size as our cruise card…Here is what it looked like:
Okie dokie, next stop was U.S. Customs…We literally just walked to where they collected this green card that the check-in person had given to us, a U.S. Customs employee collected our green card and we were then free to board the ship. It was NO big deal…Not sure how it is for others who aren’t Americans…truly, I do not know. I was not allowed to take pictures in this area, so therefore this is the only picture that I have of that time.
Next stop was Security where we had to take out our laptops and put everything through scanners (like you do at the airport…didn’t have to take off our shoes though). And after we cleared that, we were walking up the gangway and boarding the Coral Princess:
Right after we stepped on board our pictures were taken so that they’d have a picture that would go hand in hand with our cruise cards. To clarify, cards are scanned every time you disembark and when you reembark they compare your card with *that* picture. 🙂 Then we stepped over to have our Embarkation picture taken—Y’all won’t get to see that picture because Chris and I looked awful…yes, just awful in that pic…haha. We had been told that our Stateroom – Mini Suite D407 was ready and that we could head strait to it, and that is exactly what we did. 🙂
Here is my YouTube video from my Arlynn’s Travels Channel where I give a very detailed video tour of our Mini Suite D407…I’ll post pictures below as well so that y’all can get a closer look at things. 🙂
That was a very, very nice Stateroom. 🙂 We found our Princess Patter for that day on the desk…Here it is:
In addition, we had ordered a couple of things from our Cruise Personalizer and both things were sitting there waiting for us when we entered the room. One thing was a “Water Package”…12 bottles of water for a little over $6. NOTE: Please know that if you would like bottled water like this, you *must* order it via your Personalizer ***before*** your cruise…this package is not available for purchase once on board. 🙂
And yes, we did “purchase the water”, I’m not sure why they call it a “gift”…although it was a gift to ourselves..haha. 🙂
There was also this Welcome Aboard letter:
And this lovely gift that we did NOT purchase for ourselves:
And there was this spiffy cup that I received because is comes along with the Soda and More Package:
We were so happy to be on board and I could feel the stresses of travel start to lift. Chris went off to purchase a Coffee Card from the International Cafe…Here is an explanation of what a coffee card is:
“Savor the rich offerings of our New Grounds coffee program. We’ve partnered with the American Barista & Coffee School to ensure our baristas are trained in the fine art of handcrafting freshly brewed specialty coffees. Featuring premium beans sourced from Caffe Boasi in Italy, you can choose from espressos, cappuccinos, lattes and even hand-crafted iced tea fusions and more. And be sure to purchase a New Grounds Coffee Card on board for great savings. Of course, complimentary hot coffee is available in our dining rooms, bars and the Horizon Court.”
I hung out in the room doing that room tour that you saw up there and unpacked as much as I could. We found out later from our Stateroom Steward Kurt that there was some kind of Coastguard drill earlier and that is why our luggage wasn’t delivered until later in the afternoon. I also walked out onto the balcony every now and again to just take a peek out there and see what was happening:
It was almost time for our Muster Drill which is a maritime regulation..no ship can set sail unless the passengers know where they are to Muster (gather) if they hear a certain tone come over the PA system. Chris and I always go about 1/2 hour early so that we can get a seat. And yes, on Princess you carry your life jacket with you and they do allow you to practice how to put it on. One very special thing that happened at our Muster drill was that I met a sweet lady that I had met in the Facebook Group “Alaska Cruises on Princess” (I’m one of the admins in that group). Phyllis and her hubby Ken walked by us at the muster and we stopped and hugged and Chris grabbed a picture of us. Here we are standing in our Muster Station, the Wheelhouse Bar. 🙂
It was so good to meet her in person!!! ❤
Chris and I headed back to our Stateroom after that and low and behold, there were our suitcases, so we started unpacking. 🙂 We didn’t head up for the sail-away party, instead we hung out on our balcony and I caught this video. 🙂
Here are some shots that Chris caught with his camera as I was taking video:
After we passed the Lion’s Gate Bridge, we headed for the Horizon Court (the buffet), I did not catch any pictures of what we ate that evening, but, I can tell you that we were quite impressed with the buffet on this trip. Everything always tasted good, was freshly cooked, and it was always clean as a whistle. I’ll expound more in future blogs about the buffet and the Coral Princess and my impressions…I’ll just say here that up to this point, the Coral had always been our favorite, and our opinion hasn’t changed after this trip. We love the Coral Princess!
On our way back to our Stateroom, we walked through the indoor pool area and I clicked off a few pictures…because y’all know, I always had a camera around my neck just in case any photo opportunity presented itself. You’ll see below that I also took a picture of the roof…apparently it has the ability to retract…neat!!!
Then we walked past the outdoor pool and saw the MUTS screen (Movies Under the Stars):
We went ahead back to our Stateroom, I took a quick shower and we spent the rest of the daylight hours out on our balcony watching the world go by and gazing upon some beautiful sights. I was calm, I was content, I felt very blessed to be right there at that moment in time, and I was excited for the adventures that were ahead of us. 🙂 It wasn’t long after I had those thoughts that we climbed in bed and were asleep before our heads hit the pillows…stupid jet lag! 😉
Coming next, Episode #4 where I’ll tell you about the first day of our cruise, it was a sea day, but, we still kept busy doing this and that and the other thing. 😉 Here is a sneak peek of that sea day’s sunrise:
Okie dokie, it was finally *the* day, *the* day that I’d been anticipating for what seemed like forever! It was time to leave and head to the airport. Here I was at around 2am that morning, finally all packed, freshly shower, and already sleep deprived because I couldn’t even lay my head down on my pillow; that’s how excited I was for this trip, I was like a little girl on Christmas Eve! Our first flight was at 6:55am, but, you know, you have to be at the airport so many hours early now-a-days (although we did apply for and got approved for TSAPre✔️, so that did help us zip on through some of the arduous process of flying now-a-days.
That first step out of the door was the hardest, even though our daughter Christin had already arrived and would be at our house caring for our pups for the duration of our trip, I was in tears as I stepped out the door to climb into the car. I hate leaving our puppers, so, so, so much. And this time it was even a bit harder because our big Newf Sophie has been struggling with many joint issues as of late and I just could hardly stand to leave her. BUT, I knew that she had everything that she needed, i.e. Christin, the correct amount of pain medications, new, large throw rugs strewn about the hardwood floors to help her get up easier, and a strong spirit, so I knew she’d be okay. Still, it was so hard to leave. You can see the rugs strewn around behind me and the couch and beyond in this picture—Chris found many rugs like these at our local Home Depot and he purchased every dark brown one that he could find…Bless him!! ❤
Here are the three sweet puppers that we left behind in the very capable hands of our daughter…as I said though, I left with tears streaming down my face. ❤
Here’s Sophie (Newfoundland):
And Samson (Newfoundland):
And Gracie (Golden Retriever):
And all three:
All righty, so off we headed for the airport. It was the day before we were to climb aboard the beautiful Coral Princess and leave out of Vancouver for our back to back Voyage of the Glaciers cruises. Our first stop once across the Country though would be on Vancouver Island, B.C (Victoria). We got to the airport with absolutely no traffic issues…miracles of miracles in these parts, yes, even in the middle of the night. 🙂 We took a picture of where we were parked in the garage at Dulles Airport, quite the large hub of an airport.
We’d be flying Air Canada for all three of our flights on this day.
The first leg was Northern Virginia to Toronto on this jet:
Second leg would be Toronto to Vancouver on this jet which was the most comfortable of all of the jets we flew in that day, this one was actually quite nice:
Third leg would be Vancouver to Victoria and that is where we’d pick up our rental car and head to our dear friends Liz and Mike’s house for hugs, a lovely dinner, and wonderful conversation. First things first, we had to get there. As y’all know, I cannot stand negativity, but, I’m going to get a little negative here. Even though Chris had procured us “Exit Row” seats for the first 2 legs of the flight which provided me tons of leg room that was awesome, I still felt like we were two sardines in a can…what is it…have they cut 4 inches off of the seats? Or well, maybe I’ve expanded that much, but, dear me we were smooshed…miserable…tried (and succeeded) not to be grumpy as we flew across the country. We were *supposed* to land in Victoria at 1:40pm local time, but, we were delayed so long in Toronto that they had to put us on a later flight…ugh…I was SO sad that that had happened. But, Liz made everything okay, she was so gracious, so loving, and so supportive in her responses when I texted her to tell her the bad news that I couldn’t be sad for too long. We’d be late getting to their house, BUT, we would be getting there *that* evening! Here is the plane we endured for the 11 minute flight from Vancouver to Victoria (of course you sit smooshed in the plane for 30 minutes before take-off and for another 15 as you are taxying to the terminal…BUT, the flight was only 11 minutes…haha. <slapping self on forehead> ) 😉
This was me after that flight…I was pretty much in a daze by this point. 🙂
Okie dokie…We had landed in Victoria!! Woohoo, strike up the band, do the happy dance, breathe a huge sigh of relief…the hardest part of our journey was now behind us. So we headed to the luggage carousel to retrieve our luggage…well we got a bit of a surprise when my purple suitcase rounded the bend…the front pocket was gaping open and the zipper had been ripped apart…oh joy, joy…that was a fun piece of luggage to push over to the rental car agency and then out to the car then later into the hotel then…well, I’ll continue this little saga a little later. 😉 Here is the pocket I’m referring to–thankfully, the jackets that I’d stowed in that pocket were miraculously inside the large suitcase compartment.
ANYhoot, we finally found our rental car, loaded Liz and Mike’s address into our GPS (my phone). It was a 45 minute drive over to their house from the airport…I tried really hard to slap on a little bit of makeup and put a comb through my rat’s nest before we got over there…but, truly, I could hardly breathe, the butterflies in my belly were definitely doing a dance for that entire car ride. Vancouver Island is absolutely gorgeous btw, although I don’t have many pictures of it because I was too busy primping…or trying to anyway. 😉 I did manage this one shot:
We pulled up in their driveway and there sat sweet Liz waiting for us to arrive. As most of you know, Liz was diagnosed with ALS a little over a year ago. I could NOT wait to get to her to give her a HUG…Chris barely had the car stopped and I was stepping out to make my way over to her so that I could hug her neck! ❤
OMGosh y’all, what a sweet hug that was!!! Here we were a few minutes later:
Talk about happy, I was SO excited to see her…boy oh boy do I love this sweet lady!!! ❤
We made our way into their beautiful home and Mike had prepared us the most scrumptious of meals…that I did not take one picture of…UGH…I’m so sorry. But, everything he fixed for us was completely delicious!!! We so enjoyed every bite. Then it was gift giving time…Liz has been building a beautiful dollhouse so I had gotten her some little items to make a “Red Wagon Decor” out of, along with a miniature Newfie doggie figurine (that looked like their sweet Newf Jack (rest in peace) when he was a wee pup, and a bracelet.
After dinner we headed out to their back deck to chat for a nice long little while. As you can see, they have a front row seat to the most beautiful cove I’ve ever seen. 🙂 And they get to sit and watch all of the cruise ships dock in Victoria. Here are a few shots of the view off of their back deck:
And we even had some beautiful visitors come around:
The sun was was setting as we sat out there and chatted away…it was a wonderful, sweet time with Liz and Mike. But, we knew that we needed to head on out and get to our hotel back over across town as we’d be spending the night there and heading back over to Vancouver via another one of those planes and 11 minute flights very early the next morning. OH those goodbyes were bittersweet though…my heart just about broke into a million pieces…truly! ❤ ***THANK you so much Liz and Mike for having us over to your home and for the great food, conversation, and love…such genuine friends y’all, I can’t even begin to tell you what an affection Chris and I have for both of them!! ❤
Chris and I climbed back into our rental car and begrudgingly headed to our hotel. I was pleasantly surprised with the hotel though…It was the Best Western Plus, Emerald Isle Hotel in Sidney, B.C. (very close to the airport).
Here are some pictures of our room which was actually a suite with a kitchenette…very nice. 🙂
And what did Chris expend the rest of his energy doing that night? Yep, you guessed it, he fixed my suitcase’s zipper using nothing more than a butter knife, his tenacity, and his ingenuity. What can I say, the man can fix ANYthing! lol (I felt bad though because Mike had given us a roll of duck tape at my request to be used to fix that gaping pouch—no worries though, I’ll pay him back the next time we see them). 🙂 I was much relieved about that zipper though, I must admit. 🙂
Trust me y’all, I did not feel my head hit that pillow that night…I slept like a baby…And we were back up and moving very early the next morning because we had a flight to catch that would carry us back to Vancouver and to our awaiting cruise ship. 🙂
Talk about beautiful country…the Pacific Northwest’s views are breathtaking!
This was my outfit for this day, still looking pretty tired, but, this was after about 5 hours of sleep and a shower…haha:
We landed in Vancouver pretty early that morning, we actually were offered an earlier flight than we had booked…so we jumped at that because we figured that once we were in Vancouver, we could get to the ship pretty easily. We had arranged for a Princess transfer from the airport to Canada Place (the cruise port). Once we landed we headed over to the luggage carousel and our luggage was literally the only luggage on said carousel …haha…we figured out that that flight was probably full of either commuters or those that had checked their luggage though to another far-off destination. 🙂 Once we had our luggage, I went looking for our Princess Representative that I knew wouldn’t be too far away, and I was right. Princess has a little kiosk set up right past Carousel #6 in the luggage pick-up area. We headed that direction immediately…
It wasn’t long before a Princess Rep showed up and took possession of our luggage–We had placed our cruise luggage tags in the front pockets of our suitcases and had placed them on our suitcases when we retrieved our luggage. That was all she needed, we didn’t see our luggage again until we were on the ship. Nice!! She told us that we needed to be around between 10:15am and 11am (it was only 9am) and that is when we’d be gathered up and escorted to a motor coach for the trip over to Canada Place. Chris and I took that opportunity to go and grab a bit of breakfast right there in the airport.
Chris and I had a hearty breakfast and then headed back to the Princess kiosk and found a nice comfy seat. We met a lovely couple while sitting there and chatted with them, I got a lovely phone call from a dear lady that I’ve met through the Alaska Cruises on Princess Group on Facebook, her name is Eva and she and her hubby Steve live right there in Vancouver—Unfortunately, we didn’t have a chance to meet them in person this time around…but, we hopefully will do so the next time. 🙂
Our Princess Rep picked up up at around 10:30ish and we were escorted down a level and on out to our awaiting motor coach. The traffic in Vancouver on this day was pretty crazy, our bus driver said it was because it was Labor Day weekend…it took us almost an hour to get over to Canada Place.
But then all of a sudden, the beautiful Coral Princess came into view. 🙂 AND it was time to start our cruise!
One of the members of the Alaska Cruises on Princess FB group posted this beautiful picture of the Coral as it sat waiting for us right after sunrise that morning.
Oh yes, the butterflies in my belly were fluttering again, I was so excited to be going to my favorite place on the planet, Alaska.
Next up, embarkation, a tour of our Mini Suite D407, and more! Here is a sneak peek of what our Stateroom looked like for the Northbound cruise…
Hi Everyone!! Over a year ago, Chris and I decided that we wanted to go back to our most favorite place to visit, Alaska! And we decided that we wanted to do it via Princess Cruise Lines, because, let’s face it, they really do Alaska in grand fashion and we love cruising with them. First, let me show you our Itinerary, which was simply a Northbound Voyage of the Glaciers Cruise which began in Vancouver, B.C. and ended in Whittier/Anchorage Alaska. It was then immediately followed by a Southbound Voyage of the Glaciers cruise which begin in Whittier/Anchorage, Alaska and ended in Vancouver, B.C. Here are the specific itineraries.
Here is the Northbound Itinerary:
And here is the Southbound Itinerary:
Chris and I traveled the day before our cruise was to set sail because we wanted to visit very special friends of ours Liz and Mike over on Vancouver Island (Victoria), B.C., more about that very special visit in the next episode.
I digress, I am starting this new Blog Series at the very beginning of our trip with a packing blog and videos. The first thing that I want to do is to share with you my secret weapons that I utilize when it comes to packing for any trip and especially when packing for a cruise. These awesome weapons are packing cubes and garment packing folders. Our daughter Christin gave these tools to us for Christmas a couple of years ago and I was completely skeptical as to how they would help me “Ms Organized” be any more organized. Well let me tell y’all, they HAVE made me even more organized than I ever thought possible. 🙂
Here are the Packing Cubes that I use, they are from Shacke Pak and here is a LINK for you:
And here is the Medium Garment Folder that I use, it is from Eagle Creek and here is a LINK.
Before I share with you a video that I created the day before our trip began of me literally packing up my cubes and folder and then my suitcases, I want to go ahead and share with you two other videos that I created not long ago where I show you “What’s in my Carry-On” and “My Must-Haves” <~~~Things that I take on every cruise~~~. First, here is a picture of the backpack I use for my Carry-On bag…It is a Vera Bradley Campus Backpack (unfortunately, the Vera website does not sell this particular version of backpack any longer, but, here is a LINKfor it on eBay.
Here is a picture of my backpack pretty much ready to go:
Here is a link to my YouTube video from my Arlynn’s Travels YouTube Channel entitled “Alaska Pre-Cruise Report: What’s In My Carry-On & My Must Haves” where I show and tell you about everything that I was planning to take along with me on this trip. You can find links to everything that I mention that are linkable in the description of the video.
See, I told you, I am crazy organized..haha..ridiculously so sometimes. 😉
All right, while I’m at it here, let me go ahead and give y’all a link to my Alaska Cruise Wardrobe video that I created to show y’all what I was planning to take on this trip. There are links in the description of that video as well. 🙂
And now, I will share with you the video that I made up the day before we left for our trip–You’ll see the organizing power of those cubes and garment folder in action. 🙂
All right, that does it for Episode #1 in my new Alaska B2B Voyage of the Glaciers Cruise Series. Here I was at 2am the morning that we were fixin’ to head out go to to the airport…and nope, I had not gone to bed…in fact, I stayed up straight though and until the next night…excited much? Yep, I’d say so…haha. 😉
Next up, I’ll be telling you all about our flights across the Country and about our time with our dear friends Liz and Mike. BTW, Liz is the lady who encouraged me to start blogging almost 2 years ago now; I’ll be forever grateful to her for that nudge. 🙂 <3.
Hi Everyone! I’m so excited! Now, y’all know that I’ve been a crafter for pretty much my entire married life–35 years…whew, that is a long time. 😉 🙂 I have created many, many things in that time, but, my nemesis has *always* been craft bows. A long, long time ago, I learned how to create a “tiered” bow, meaning that each row of loops in the bow were a little longer than the last…something like this, I made this bow for my Easter front door wreath:
Now, that is a perfectly gorgeous bow and trust me y’all, I have made many a project with that type of bow attached. But, I wanted to learn how to do something a little different so that I could expand my repertoire. So I went about searching around YouTube and I learned how to make a big bold “round” (for lack of a better way of describing it) bow. This is the type of bow that I usually attach to the swag points of my pip berry garland that I have draping down our staircase. Here is an example of that bow…which I absolutely adore!
I am always trying to push the walls of my little comfortable crafting box out and I love to try to create new and different things. So that is where the new bow that I just learned how to make comes into play. I found a lady on YouTube, her name is Julie and her channel is called “Southern Charm Wreaths” and she is where I learned how to do the spiffy bows that I’m fixin’ to show you–she dubs them “Funky Bows”! I cannot tell you how absolutely thrilled I am with these very special bows and after learning the basic concept, I’m now putting my own spin on them! I will add my YouTube tutorial videos below each set of pictures–I’ve been busily about creating amped up lantern swags made with that sweet bow. 🙂
Here is an example of my very first lantern swag–I made this to go atop a beautiful red lantern that I found in my locally owned craft store here in my town. Also, I’ve been adding “fairy lights” for the inside of the lanterns–you’ll see how in the video, but, here is a link to the fairy lights that I’ve been utilizing–they are very reasonably priced from Amazon and they have many different “flashing” options…Here is a link for my fairy lights :
By the way: I explain and list all of the materials that I used for all of these creations in my videos, or if I don’t tell you where exactly I got them in the videos, I provide you a list in the description of the videos:
And here is my YouTube video tutorial:
I was so happy with how that lantern swag turned out that I was anxious to try another one, so next up I decided to take a cream colored lantern that I had sitting up on top of my desk and jazz it up a bit with a lantern swag. Here is what I came up with that time:
OMGosh, was I ever happy with that one too!! 🙂 And here is my YouTube tutorial:
Next up, it was time to switch all of my Patriotic decor out for what I’m now dubbing my “Cozy Country” or generic decor (I will share the entire transformation of my decor over in an upcoming blog). First up, was my lantern centerpiece that I keep on my kitchen table. As most of you know, I reuse the same lantern and tray year round. To change it up, I simply just switch out the decor that surrounds it and that I make for the top of it. This time I again, kicked it up a notch and topped off this lantern centerpiece with a swag utilizing my new way to make a bow:
When I was creating that lantern centerpiece, I also did a couple of other centerpieces, one of which I added a bow swag. Here are those two sweet little centerpieces, one for on the hearth, and one for on an accent table that sits between the kitchen and family room:
Here is my YouTube video where I show you how I created these centerpieces:
Lastly, I moved back out to the front porch and gathered up that red lantern again. I wanted to make up a swag that would look great to go with my “Cozy Country” decor out on the front porch. Here are a few pictures of how that turned out…I was honing my skills now…haha. 🙂
And here is my YouTube video where I show you how I created this pretty lantern:
I cannot tell y’all how absolutely thrilled I am that I have now added the new bow design to my list of crafts that I can create. The possibilities are endless! I have made a few wreaths with them too, I’ll highlight those in another blog post at a later date. ANYway, I’m a happy girl over here, just zipping along switching out my Patriotic Decor for my Cozy Country decor (which will make transitioning over to my Fall Decor so much easier). 🙂
I hope that watching me step out of my nice safe little craft box will give y’all the confidence to do so yourselves! Give one of these sweet new bows a try…you can do it!! And it is fun!! And remember what I always say:
***In crafting there are no mistakes, only unique creations!***
Hi Everyone!!! Arlynn here! Welcome back to my Country Craft Corner! Thank you all for sticking with me and following me on over here on my Blog site, this is where I will be if and until YouTube restarts my channel. In the video below, I explain what happened to my YouTube Channel. I also include a car chit-chat from yesterday and my haul from Hobby Lobby. I am moving forward and not allowing this little hiccup to get in my way. Y’all mean way too much for me to give up and stick my head in the sand…not gonna happen. ANYway, here is that video!! ❤
Thank you all so much for following me on over here for the time being. I will keep y’all informed regarding my YouTube Country Craft Corner channel.
Hi everyone! Thank you all so very much for stopping in here to see what I’ve been up to as of late…a-n-d…I’ve, as you will see as we go through this little post, have been keeping myself very busy. As y’all know by now, decorating and redecorating for each Season/Holiday is a passion of mine. So as we were approaching Memorial Day at the end of May, I started to plan, create, and get myself all revved up to start my switch out to my Patriotic decor. I normally will switch everything over to the Patriotic by Memorial Day and that is how it will stay until after the 4th of July. So instead of talking y’alls ears off here, let me show and tell you (via my YouTube video tutorials and tours) how I achieved my goal of bringing in some of the Patriotic. By the way, I only redecorated the back side of the house, I left the living room, dining room, and foyer alone. Okay, so here we go. I started with our mailbox, here is how it looks after I took inspiration from that mailbox cover—trying to create the same feel in the back trough that is depicted on the cover:
So while I was outside, I went ahead and did some more decorating up by the house. I switched out the lightpost wreath to a deco mesh one that I had made last year, I also switched out the decorative flags, placed a burlap wreath that I had made a couple of years ago on the front door and then I added a few Patriotic things to the red wagon decor.
Here is my YouTube video where I show you how I put that mailbox decor together and then I give you a tour of the front sidewalk decor and beyond. 🙂
Next up, I moved on into the house and I started redecorating at our kitchen table by replacing my red and white gingham tablecloth with a navy blue one and then I added a table runner on top.
I made the lantern centerpiece to pair with that runner. Here is a my YouTube video where I show you how I put the centerpiece together:
Next up, I worked on a few accent centerpieces:
And here is my YouTube video showing you how I created those three centerpieces:
And last but not least, I finished decorating the rest of the family room including several “cozy corners”, the mantel, the hearth, the kitchen hutch, and more. Here are some pictures first, and then I’ll give you a link to my home tour video:
Last but not least, and a little bonus footage, Chris and I took a trip down to Hampton, Virginia to go to the “Bodacious Bazaar”. Chris’ Mom had a beautiful wind spinner that we wanted to purchase and the vender that supplied that spinner was going to be at that bazaar. Here is a little video of our road trip down to the bazaar, and then I haul what we purchased.
And here are a few pictures of where we placed that sweet bike, chair, & lantern shepherd’s hook. Both spinners are in the backyard along with the butterfly balancer 🙂
And I brought a little of the Patriotic feel to the bike and the chair. 🙂
Chris rigged up some low voltage lights and attached them into those lanterns and they come on and go off with the rest of the pretty accent lighting in front of the house. 🙂
And that, my friends, is that…As I mentioned above, I’ve been a busy lady. 😉 It does feel good to get everything switched over though, it was a task, but, one that I totally enjoyed!
Until next time, y’all take good care! ❤
**In crafting, there are no mistakes, only unique creations**
As I mentioned above, I did all of the decorating that you see in these pictures prior to leaving for our cruise, and when we returned home, I went ahead and finished the outdoor spaces. Here is was I completed just last week:
⚜️ Arlynn's Country Craft Corner ⚜️ 