alaskan cruise reveal!

The story started back at Christmas when my parents had our whole family doing a crazy treasure hunt – jumping jacks, dancing, chanting together until we thought, “What is going on?!” This must be something big! They gave both my sister’s family and mine a box which included moose mix, husky dogs, sleds (which my mom had me personalize for all the grandkids but I had no idea why), binoculars, pretend passports, and lots of ofther things. They wanted my sister and I (they had pre-arranged this with our husbands) to guess what was happening & we really had no clue! They showed us a special book full of pictures of our lives, our parents’ lives and a poem that read WE WERE GOING ON A CRUISE! Needless to say…we were beyond THRILLED!

Reveal basket items:

huskies for all the kdis
Moose Munch
pretend passports
kids’ binoculars
winter hats for all
books for all the kids
sled ornaments

Designing with the Cricut

So…time went on and soon school was out. Being the crafty gal I am – I had known I wanted to create some fun items for the trip. My parents live in Oregon, so at the beginning of summer, I brought the kids “home” to stay for 10 days. I also brought along…my Cricut!! I love the Silhouette Cameo, so I’m still getting used to the Cricut software to do everything I want.

It all started trying to discover a logo. My mom and sister had various ideas about what it should be like…we tried animals, cruise ships, words, we just couldn’t get it right…but then it came to me – mountains! and I made one like this.

My nephew Jackson said he’d like all of our names on the back because we were a “team” – I liked that idea!

T-shirts

My sister had bought these baseball t-shirts from a local shop. We were delighted to find the same shirt that ranged from size 2T to XL!

I used silver siser htv (heat transfer vinyl). When using the software, you cut the mirror image out.

Then you weed out the part you don’t want using the Cricut tools and the vinyl sticks to this clear piece of plastic.

I used the Cricut Easy Press and the Cricut Easy Press Mat to press the vinyl onto the shirts. I find this to work a lot better than the iron which I used for many years!

305 degrees, then press the Cricut button for 30 sec.

This is the back of the shirt.

I made the logo larger for the kids’ shirts and smaller and in the upper right for the adults’ shirts.

Water Bottles

I used the logo on many different things we will bring with us on our cruise…permanent vinyl for water bottles. My mom had purchased the water bottles at Costco, and I used Angel transfer paper to stick the design on.

I put names on one side and the logo on the other side.

Hats

I bought these trucker hats at Hobby Lobby. I wasn’t quite sure how to iron on a hat, but I looked up some youtube videos and tried it out.

I rolled a towel behind the back, and used my Cricut Easy Press to roll on the design.

The Cricut cuts out the design backwards, then I weeded out the pieces I didn’t need and ended up with a sticker ready to go.

savings jar

I cut the image on white vinyl.
Then used transfer paper to transfer the sticker to mason jars for the boys to use. (I picked the jars up free from a garage sale – so…SCORE!)

Perfect to rev up excitement for the trip & give the kids an opportunity to save a little spending money!

bags of gold

I used white htv to put the kids’ names on bags my mom sewed.

We will fill them with the notepad and other snacks, then later use them to collect gold.

Here are the bags filled up with treats.

the notepads

My mom picked up these notepads on sale at The Craft Warehouse.

So I added the kids’ names & our logo with transfer paper!

personalized passports

These passports are filled with blank pages for the kids to draw their adventures!

sweatshirts

We bought these sweatshirts at Old Navy, and my parents found some sweatshirts they had in the closet!

And I personalized everything!

Dog Tags

I cut out the names and shapes of the dog tags for these fuzzy little huskies that were part of the original reveal. My mom crocheted these little collars for them.