Alaska Incentive Trip Pillow Gifts! - Debbie Henderson, Stampin' Up! Demonstrator

This week, I am going to be showing you some snippets of some of the things that took place on our Stampin’ Up! Incentive Trip to Alaska. I’m a little late posting because Dave and I arrived home from the cruise and had a lot to do that week because Dave was scheduled for his 2nd knee replacement surgery a week after the cruise. I’m happy to say that his surgery was this past Wednesday and we arrived back home from the hospital on Saturday. Thanks to those of you close to me, for the well wishes and prayers. He is starting physical therapy today. The first two weeks after surgery are the worst. We are counting down those two weeks.

So on July 20th, we flew from Maine to Chicago and Chicago to Seattle and boarded the Royal Caribbean Explorer of the Seas cruise ship. This ship is HUGE! There were over 5,000 people and crew onboard the ship. As far as Stampin’ Up!, there were over 400 demonstrators that earned and signed up for the cruise, plus spouses/boyfriends and some also took their children with them. This is a photo of our ship:

Once we embarked, we were allowed to go to our staterooms a few hours later. Upon arriving to our rooms, each demonstrator had a wooden frame memento on our doors. We were told to take them off of our doors and bring them inside so other non-Stampin’ Up! people wouldn’t take off with them. Isn’t it a great memento?

So today what I’m going to talk to you about are Pillow Gifts. What is a Pillow Gift? Each night, usually after our dining time, when we arrived back to our rooms, our cabin stewards always made up our beds for the 2nd time each day and placed a Pillow Gift from Stampin’ Up! on our beds. This was our Day #1 Pillow Gift:

Each Pillow Gift has a cute tag attached to a cut bag with some new ribbon you’ll find in the Holiday Catalog. We all knew we were receiving jackets because when we accepted the trip and started the process of registering, we had to give our preferred jacket size. Isn’t the jacket beautiful? I had ordered one for Dave also and his is a dark gray. Along with the jacket, we received our first gift from the new and upcoming Holiday Catalog. This gift is the Swirls & Curls Embossing Folder:

Our Day #2 Pillow Gift is was pretty appropriate. You see, we need something to store all of our gifts in so here’s what we received on our beds:

We also received a package of the new All Is Bright Designer Paper that was inside the bag. You can see a little of the paper in the left-hand top corner of this photo:

Day #3 Pillow Gift, which happens to be on Sunday was sitting on our bed in this cute little bag:

More goodies! This time we received the Merry Christmas To All Bundle. This bundle includes the Merry Christmas To All stamp set and Merry Christmas Thinlits Dies:

The Pillow Gift for Day #4 was perfect if Alaska would have had normal temps while there. But as luck would have it, we were in a heat wave that week. Temps reached in the 80’s which was very unusual we were told. This gift is going to come in handy for the Maine winters Dave and I live:

So as you can see, we received this pretty blanket along with the All Is Bright Paper Clips:

Are you getting excited yet? I know we were! And you can get gifts just like this too by joining my team and earning your own trip. I would LOVE to have you on my team! So now let’s move on to Day #5. My new bag is getting fuller as I show you all of these gifts. Stampin’ Up! is always so generous to their demonstrators! We had an interesting box sitting on our bed for Day #5 along with another sweet bag:

And look at what we found inside the box. It’s a wireless speaker that you can hook to your phone or other electronics and we also received a spool of the Real Red Mixed Ribbon:

I’ve got two more days of Pillow Gifts to show you. Isn’t it just crazy? So we are now on Wednesday and this is Pillow Gift #6:

We all received another new bundle from the new Holiday Catalog. This one is called the Making Christmas Bright Bundle and includes the Making Christmas Bright stamp set and Christmas Bulb Builder Punch. A lovely set:

Thursday night was our last night on the ship as we disembarked early on Friday morning. So this was our final Pillow Gift which is #7:

The large cylindrical tube holds a map and all of the continents, countries, etc. are gold foiled. The purpose of this is to use a penny to scratch off all of the places you have travel to. I did not take it out of the cylinder until we arrived home. I actually waited a bit because I purchased a frame to put it in and hung it in the garage where I host all of my classes. I wanted my customers to be able to see it! Along with the map, we received my FAVORITE bundle in the Holiday Catalog. I was so pleased to receive this one as a gift! This is the Dashing Deer Bundle which includes the Dashing Deer stamp set and coordinating Detailed Deer Thinlits Dies:

I want to end my post today, by showing you the creativeness of our cabin steward. A few times during our stay, he created some towel art to leave on our bed. This was usually done in the mornings while we were at breakfast. Enjoy the towel art and see you tomorrow with more Alaska photos!