Creative Exploration to Canada & New England - Last Sea Day/Farewell/Odds & Ends

It is Saturday, October 8th, our last day at sea.  Sigh.....one last class, our farewell cocktail party, packing (yuck!), goodbyes, and lots of "keep in touch," and "see you next year."
My group had our class at 8am.  

Tim calls it Shabby Patchwork, and it consists of a medium sized rectangular canvas and three smaller ones.  We created grids and covered the sections with a variety of papers.

The areas with the  X  are where the smaller canvases will eventually be attached.

At times this project seemed like a geometry lesson!

This was another one that I finished at home.  We received plenty of doo-dads to complete it, but I had some things at home that I knew would be perfect with my color palette.

Here's the finished piece with close-ups of each section.

Tim referred to the technique below as a fossil.  We glued a plastic butterfly to one of the smaller canvases, covered the whole thing with a lot of multi medium, then adhered a dictionary page, pressing the paper into the details of the butterfly.  When dry we highlighted the raised areas with ink.  Very cool.

Tim showed us how to define the edges of each grid with graphite pencil and bling.

The optical piece is one I added at home:

This is one of my favorite sections.  The UTEE heart was in our class kit, but when we received it, it was black.  Back home I covered it with white gesso, then aqua paint.  The same paint went on the flower button on the bottom left.

 We received a whole pack of prima flowers, and I altered them all a bit with tumbled glass distress ink.  The pearl centers were also in our class kit.

Another great class, another wonderful piece of art!

Had a fab lunch in the dining room with Pat, Lori, Maurene and Wendy.  GREAT chopped salad!

After lunch Pat and I packed.  It was a difficult task, but we could then enjoy the rest of the day and evening without that added pressure.

Late afternoon, our farewell in the Maharaja Lounge.

Remember those tickets we received with our purchases in Mario's Shop?

Tickets would be drawn; people would win fabulous prizes.  Last year I won zilch.  Would I be any luckier this year?

That's Tim in the picture, in front of tables of prizes, and behind a table full of ticket stubs.  Mario is ready to run to the winners to deliver their prizes.
People won all sorts of goodies donated by the very best companies. There were even three winners of the Vagabond, including my friend Nancy!  And for one lucky cruiser, next year's Caribbean cruise would be free.
As for me.....well......

YES!!!!!  I was a winner!  Above my winning ticket, three of Tim's acrylic stamp sets, the line that is exclusive to Hobby Lobby.

As we left the lounge to go to dinner we were each given a stamp of the cruise logo.  How cool!

Odds & Ends.....photos I forgot to post, things I forgot to say.......

Another photo op with Tim:

Some cool gifts I received (apart from all the wonderful swaps):

From Gloria, a new Lady Liberty stamp

and an old printer's type in my initial

From Pat, a fab necklace and ring with

the cruise logo

 From Lori, this wonderful box!  She made it

a while back, and told me she had me in mind 

all the time!

This is how it looks closed, just like a real

theater:

Opened (I'd sent Lori the vintage

NY postcard!): 

On the back:

The cabin door sign I made, and the back-up Pat made (in case mine went missing).  Same great logo on our t-shirts, which somehow or other I don't have photos of.

If you've never been on a cruise, you might not know this, but most every night when you return to your cabin you'll find your bed turned down and a creature made from towels (and sometimes napkins), courtesy of your steward.  Instead of posting them day by day, I thought you might enjoy this parade:

The evening meal in the dining room can take up to 2 hours to complete, and the right waiter and assistant waiter can make all the difference in your experience there.  We were lucky this year to have Stoyan from Bulgaria, who provided great service, much humor, and always, "three recommendations" for each course.

Assisting Stoyan, was the always cheerful Ravi from India, who took care of our bread and beverage needs

Some things I'd picked up at our shopping expedition to Tinsel Trading in NYC:

The little books I found in the antique shop in Bar Harbor:

A pair of tacky Lady Liberty earrings I found in a consignment store in Portland (well, actually, Pat found them for me; I bought them):

Random shots of friends:

The monument on the pier at Port Liberty, a gift from Russia, made of debris from the World Trade Center:

And last of all, some shots of NY harbor as the ship headed towards Port Liberty and home.

Well, that's it, folks!  Hope you enjoyed the cruise right along with me!  Hope to see many of you next year as we cruise with Tim in the sunny Caribbean!