The Great Western Journey Part 12--The Big Meeting

Saturday is the day for the formal meeting for the club. As a board member, I have other meetings to attend in the morning. The main meeting for all the members starts just after lunch. We have speakers, trivia, and presentations of various awards. It's one of the best parts of the weekend!

This layout should look familiar. I made this when I was the guest designer for Lasting Memories in July 2021. I had to store this until I got to this album a year later.

In addition to the photos, I always try to save a copy of the program (The Stamp Pad) and our name tags.

I looked to see what photos were left in my stash for this event and there were just a few. While working on this album I was also working on using up any pre-made pages made directly on the CM base pages. I'm eventually going to transition to top-loading sleeves for my pages. My mission was to find a use for this layout that I made from a freebie paper pack. The class I took used the mats to create a layout leaving blank spots for the photos. My photos didn't quite line up as planned, and I needed to fit the program in as well. But the page is done and that's what counts!

The Great Western Journey part 11--Come and get it!

 Time to start album #2 in the Great Western Journey. This post is sort of the "middle" section from Mount Rushmore. Our bus trip took us to Mount Rushmore in the afternoon, then we went to a Chuckwagon Dinner, and then we returned to Mount Rushmore for the lighting ceremony. 

If you remember, I used a printed calendar page for the kick-off page in the first album. I wanted something similar but not exact. I found this image in my Pinterest files and used it to make the page. I did some math to figure out what the dimensions were--most of which I got right. It does help to use up scrap paper! And then I added just a few travel stickers for emphasis. I wrote "Western Journey" and Volume Two was comprised of some old sticker letters (none of which I had to manipulate to get the words!).

The bus pulled up to the dining hall which surprised me. For some reason I assumed there was a hay ride and we'd be eating in the field. This actually was better--long trestle tables full of people! The hall holds way more than our group but it was not overcrowded.

This layout is based on a sketch from one of my classes. The focus of the sketch was the borders and circles. That gave me the inspiration to go with some bold paper as a background. The borders were cut from a bandana square and in hindsight, I probably should have made the borders smaller so no one sees that the sides go "nowhere". The 3 circles provide "quiet" space on the layout which is great for small sticker clusters (using up some old Western theme CM and other stickers) as well as a place for journaling. Tucking the circles under other elements means that if you accidentally cut too close to the edge, no one will know! Unless you tell them in your blog 😀.

There was a process for getting your meal. Everyone received a metal plate and you walked through the line. The servers placed food in the correct location (you don't get to choose) as you made it through the process. If everyone cooperates, the line moves pretty smoothly. I delayed getting my meal just so I could take photos of everyone in the line. All of the people in the photos are from the club.

This layout is based on the Club Scrap Trattoria deluxe layout #13-14. I had purchased the cut-apart strips but not the paper that goes with the kits. I used other supplies that I had on hand when I put them together. The left strip under "Cowboy" is a saying about pizza. Since that didn't apply, but I wanted to use this particular layout, I added the letters--it really gave "flavor" to the page! (Those letters and the other square decorations were cut from the center of a scrapbook daily calendar I received many years ago--still using the supplies!) I was one photograph short so I chose one of the decorative mats from the Wide Open Places collection to fill the gap.

In addition to dinner, we were entertained by the house band. There was some light-hearted banter included in their remarks and then a variety of Country and Western tunes. It was a great evening.

I wanted to use the left-hand page on this layout (not a lot of other opportunities for me to use a western guitar page). I matched the wood tone on the right but added a pop of purple (I chose that because of the color the stage lights gave to the pages). A purple mat on the left helps carry that color across the layout. I added some random stickers and other embellishments with music themes to finish the page.

The Great Western Journey part 8--A Star is Born

Friday morning I was up EARLY. Like O-Dark-Thirty early. But for a good cause. Our press release about the convention had been picked up by the local TV station and they asked for us to be interviewed on the local morning show. So as incoming president (I ran unopposed so I knew the outcome before the meeting) I joined the outgoing president, Roland, and a few of our Platinum Members on a street corner downtown. Periodically they would cut to us and their reporter for a few minutes of talk. We had a great time.

This layout is based on one of my monthly classes. I chose the Showtime collection. The sketch was supposed to have 2 4x6 vertical photos and a 4x4 which would stretch across the page. I used a 5x7 photo and a 4x4 journaling box. That left an inch along the side so I added one of the flocked embellishments. I used a paper  scrap to create the larger tag above the journaling box and then several embellishments clustered around the page to accent the layout. 

The Great Western Journey part 7--Dinner with Teddy Roosevelt

 We arrived at our host hotel on Thursday afternoon and picked up our registration bags for the conference. Our first event was that evening. A gentleman who doubles as Teddy Roosevelt came to a special dinner. After eating he gave an overview of Teddy's life in great detail. Below you can see that he took time to pose with the guests (including a Teddy Bear).

This layout uses papers in one of the Prismatic packs. It was free when you ordered the Tonal Collections in early 2022. The paper has a design on one side and the other has lines with suggested cuts. By making the cuts and reassembling the papers you can create designs as seen in this CM blog post. While I did not follow any specific layout, I did use the cuts to create some layered shapes and develop this layout. The borders at the top and bottom are stickers from the coordinating pack. The primary motivational color was brown (walls and Teddy's outfit), and the green contrasted that. You'll notice several patterns. So long as you keep the patterns to 1 small, 1 medium, and 1 large, you can mix and match on the page without overwhelming the viewer.

I took a lot more photos of the various tables of diners. I've met and become friends with a lot of people over the years so it seemed I knew someone just about at every table. To incorporate all of them I used some extra pockets. You can see in the 2nd photo the "inside" with more diners.

The layout for this came from a class I took so I cannot show the sketch. I liked the repeating border across the middle of the paper. I chose papers from a Paper Loft kit called Euphoria (I think). They have paper that is heavier--almost cardstock weight--and is printed in 2 designs. I gutted the blue gingham paper and flipped over the middle to the cream side. I used a variety of papers in the collection to punch borders and then layered them across the pages. They supply some cardstock sheets with words for decoration and I used those at the top of the page (and one on the inside pocket at the bottom right). Since the borders were so bold I didn't need much else.

Showing Some Love

For my summer Scrap Camp, we were given a sketch and a prompt to scrapbook about a place we love. It didn't have to be a specific place,  but something that we loved to do. I chose, of course, to make a layout about being in the National Parks with my club friends. I chose the 6 photos to pair in 3 categories: Stamping (top 2), In the park (middle left and bottom right), and with NPTC friends (Bottom left and middle right).

I can't post the sketch because of the camp rules, but you can see the line in the middle where the pictures meet. I doubled the sketch and mirrored left and right pages for this layout. The background paper is from an Americana pack and the other paper is just cardstock. I happened to have a basic NPS unigrid on hand and it worked perfectly with the layout. The arrowhead, passport and ranger badge stickers are all from Eastern National's scrapbook kit. The little animals came from a different sticker pack but I think they fit the theme.

Convention in the Capital--part 1: The annual meeting

In early August 2011 the National Park Travelers Club held their 9th annual convention at the National Mall. Jim and I drove down after work Friday. Saturday morning I helped with morning registration before the event. There were several speakers (including me as a surprise fill-in for someone who canceled).

I think this layout turned out well. I scraplifted it from this layout that I found on pinterest: Left page, Right page. I had some blue striped paper for the top and left side, and I had a piece of 8 1/2 x 11 with stars and banners for the split in the middle. I chose red mats instead of white and I think that helps set off the photos over the white background better. My stickers and die cuts included my name tag from the event. The title was cut with the Cricut using one of the free fonts on the machine.

Northwest Adventure part 15--the last entry

Saturday was the final day of our trip (we left VERY early Sunday morning). The convention took up the afternoon and evening for us.

Here we are at the last page of the album. The left page is nothing special--just taking the red/white/blue theme from the cake and using the paper and journal box for the page. This is actually about the right side, which is the back cover to the album. I was working on this at a craft house (a place where we can REALLY spread out and stay overnight so our tables don't have to be packed up all the time). I got to the end and realized I didn't have a place for the convention program. I couldn't even put in an 8 1/2x11 sheet protector because I didn't have anything for the back. So I initially threw it out. I went to bed that night but woke up with an epiphany! Why NOT put something on the back cover inside? What else can you use it for? So I did, and there it is. I'm glad I threw it in a box for recycling so there was not a stain or crumple on it before I took it back out.

And there is the last entry for this adventure. Beginning next week we'll return to the chronological entries from 2011.

Northwest Adventure part 8--end of the cruise

Our last shore stop was in Ketchikan. Ironically, Ketchikan is the rainiest spot in Alaska but the weather was beautiful for us.

On the left page is a border I made with Creative Memories paper and stickers. It's busy, but I like the combination. Also on the left is a punch art sun made with the Creative Memories paisley punch. I put 5 of them together for the rays, and then punched a circle for the sun in the middle. I really wanted to highlight the good weather! I think I might have needed a 6th ray because it also looks a bit like a starfish. Yellow matting for the photo helps tie the page together. On the right is a Fast to Fabulous page. With cropping and layering of the photos I was able to piece together the multiple sides of the statue in the round.

Also in the area just off the ship was the "liquid Sunshine" gauge. This includes snow as well as rain and last year they had over 100".  We walked through the city, but one of my planned stops was the Southeast Alaska Discovery Center. This is another part of the Tongass National forest so I got more bonus stamps. There were some good displays to view as well.

I kept these pages very plain. There is a background wall paper for both which was a little darker than the traditional pages. I again added a sticker of the sun and the photography sign. Really, the page is all about the photos and journaling. Well, not every page has to be a masterpiece.

Our plan for the day was just to walk around the town and our next stop was the Creek Street area which was the business district (and in those days was the red light district). I loved that everyone was fishing from the bridge. I'm not sure how the lines don't get crossed. The right page features photos of a salmon statue and though it's a replacement, it's really quite lovely.

On the left page I used more of the paper from my Scrapbooking Page a Day calendar. It's funny that when I originally went through the slips I thought "When am I going to use the fishing pages?" And then you come across people fishing and it just works! So the bottom right mat with the fish corners is a page from the calendar. In the space under the photo were a couple of clip art photos--one of which I used on the bottom left. The title is a simple strip of blue cardstock with a decorative circle in the middle and a second layer of creels and bobs to highlight the fishing theme. The journal box is a piece of journal paper with a couple of stickers across the bottom.

On the right I used a piece of Creative Memories' Enchanted paper. The blue diamond paper really reminded me of the scales on the statue and I thought it a perfect match. I apparently had used a portion of that page before so the gap at the top is filled with another frame from the calendar and a green journal  box. 

We saw quite a lot when walking around town and I wanted to capture all the various pieces of the trip. Look at the staircase on the right page--would you like to climb up and down that every day to get home!?! Sometimes we saw wildlife, sometimes we saw strange shops like the whale popcorn place. It made it a little difficult to put it all together cohesively but I think this worked.

These 2 pages are also from the pre-designed picfolio pack and again, I'm using them as they are meant to be! Since the left page ended up being about totem poles, I added the sticker from an Alaskan Scrapbook kit I picked up. The eagle sticker on the right is similar to all the bear stickers. We hung out in various locations (like near a fishing boat launch) to try to get photos of bears and eagles and got NOTHING. Still, for us the day spent doing nothing was quite something!

Below are the layouts for the end of the cruise. There was still a days worth of travel before reaching Vancouver and the ship held some contests as a sort of boat carnival. We ended with a grand dinner and then transitioned back to our land portion of the trip. 

On the left is another cruise page I bought. i added the circle for "Fun at Sea" and that's all the page required. On the right I made a wave border with the Creative Memories border maker system to carry the water theme from the left across the layout. The journal box was actually part of the set made with the border seen in the post at the beginning of the trip with the champagne fountain. The top border is from one of the cruise pages. On the back of that border is the bar code so that when checking out the store can scan it easily. Some companies are thoughtfully printing a contrasting or border design on the other side so it isn't wasted. I used one here with a small sticker as a combination title and decoration.

This is the last page of the album. I always have problems figuring out how to end an album, especially a theme album. Some people make decorative pages much like my kick off page. This time, the club had a group photo taken and I chose the 8x10 photo as my ending page. 

This is one more of the picfolio pre-designed pages and it seems made to highlight a large photo. The title stickers had to be blended though I tried my darndest to get all one shade. Still it is all the same font and I didn't have to manufacture letters. Now it's time to get to the land tour. We took a bus from Vancouver back to Washington state and our adventure keeps going!

Northwest Adventure part 5--Skagway

Our next port of call was actual land! Skagway is the home of one of our host parks and we had a presentation of the iconic stamper, as well as several tours of the area. Our first tour was to the start of the gold fields. The rest of our group took a railroad trip to the Canadian part of the gold rush trail, but we chose a van tour (partly because I wanted a photo of the Alaska state sign).

The left page was my take on this idea Corner Rounder idea page). Somehow my cuts don't QUITE match up the way the sample does. (I know, I'm probably the only one who can see the errors). The right page is a Fast to Fabulous page. Since we took a van tour the road sign was the perfect accent. I added the words from a sticker in my stash, but it looks like it was always part of the page.

After our tour we opted to be dropped in town. Our convention host is Klondike Gold Rush which is actually comprised of 2 different locations--the one in Skagway, Alaska where people started their trek to the gold fields and the one in Seattle, Washington where they boarded boats for the trip to Skagway. By taking the cruise we were able to visit both halves of the unit which is somewhat rare.

On the left is actually a wallpaper technique. The page is from Creative Memories' Discover paper pack. I like how rustic it is and it is one paper with a patchwork design so I don't have to paper piece. It was a good choice for the building covered in driftwood. On the right is another Fast 2 Fabulous page. The blue backdrop helps link our convention shirts to the page. 

After we presented the iconic stamper to the Skagway part of the unit, we broke into a couple of groups for a tour of the city and National Park areas. My favorite photo is on the left page. So many people ask me if that is my husband Jim! (It's not, it's just a mannequin that looks like him). We started with the museum next door which covers what someone would need to take with them to the mining fields. It took over 10 trips up and down the mountain to haul everything.

This layout is part of a class I took with Paper Loft (https://paperloft.com/). I found a scrapbook convention in Lancaster and took this class because they make layouts with paper and not a bunch of wood, bling and other 3D materials which make my books bulky and can put dents in my photos. I love their paper--great designs and they make coordinating sets so you know that the various prints will look good together. 

As we moved through the city we got SOAKED in the rain. It turns out the jacket I brought wasn't actually water proof even though it felt like it should be. We saw several historic buildings--people who helped the miners to prepare or came to mine but found out the real money was in selling supplies.

The entire layout is also a wallpaper technique. Like the winding road photo in my Rocky Mountain layout, the left page picture of a log cabin is actually 12x12 pre-designed paper but matched really well with one of the log cabins used by an early settler. Next door is their richly decorated house that they moved into with their profits. The paper I chose for that page was from the Creative Memories Reminisce Travel pack. I love the gold tones that swirl through the page.

After touring the town we took a van tour out to the start of the Chilkoot trail--Dyea. The town has been nearly swallowed back into the forest in less than a hundred years. And it's still raining.

This is another layout from Paper Loft (though made in a different year). Look closely--there's footprints! (It's been a while but I told you there would be more!) Unlike my other pages though, this was actually a print from the Paper Loft paper that we cut and strategically placed across the page split. I'm glad when I can use a premade layout from my stash. If you don't take a class, make sure that when you buy paper you buy a few of their cut apart sheets with the phrases and pictures. It helps make a complete layout.

Northwest Adventure part 3--Smooth Sailing

Here's where we stretch the imagination of "National Park" scrapbooking. These pages are about our first couple of days on the ship and the closest we get to a park is our club meeting in one of the lounges.

These 2 pages are laser cut layouts which I bought for the album. They came with the blue background which I'm not sure was anything more than filler paper, but it did make a nice background. The only thing I don't like about these types of pages are the pre-measured blocks. My photos never seem to fit so as on the left, I just covered them up willy nilly. On the right I used a variety of stickers to fill in most of the little squares making a type of border. Two of them became journaling blocks as well. The whole point of this layout, I have to confess, is the photo on the right. I had seen something like that on Pinterest and just had to copy it and I was bound and determined to get it into the album. Big thanks to my hubby for participating in the photo op!

So here's the club meeting on the left. It's a very simple background paper with a sticker border on top. I used the red in Nancy's shirt to pick a color for the journal box. We had a great time at the meeting even if we weren't the ones to win a free cruise! On the right is another Fast to Fabulous page. I liked the Good Eats theme and used it to highlight the lunch with somewhat unusual food (reindeer chili!). Look, I remembered to layer the photos!

And lastly is a gratuitous look at formal night. There was a special display of champagne flutes and they poured many bottles over them to fill the tower. They also passed glasses around. We were encouraged to have our photo taken and I definitely wanted to try that. We can't actually hold the bottle, just the maitre' d's arm, but it was still fun!

On the left is a border I made with the Creative Memories Cruise stickers. The black banner is slightly wavy and trimmed by hand to have the triangle ends. On top are 3 double mounted squares and then the stickers. On the right is a champagne bottle I found in the Cricut library. I added a few streamers for the party feel and the pages were done!

My first NPTC convention

Although I had been on the club message boards for quite a while, I had never attended a convention. For 2008 the location was Lowell in Massachusetts, and I thought Jim and I could take a drive to attend. I received a GPS unit for my birthday and purchased my EZ Pass transponder for the tolls so we were set!

We left Thursday night and drove to a hotel in Connecticut then completed the drive on Friday. We went into Boston first and took a whale watching cruise which was fabulous! On Saturday morning we drove into Lowell to see the park. I loved the trolley at the visitor center. Because it was our first time we didn't really know about all the club events. I could have joined a group taking the trolleys as a tour of the city, but didn't know enough to register for it. Still, we had a good time looking at the various buildings and we had lunch at a nearby restaurant. Jim returned to the hotel and I went to register for the meeting.

On the left page I used  an 8 1/2 x 11 page from the Eastern National scrapbook pack as a giant photo mat for the picture of me at the park sign. I didn't realize when I created the page that I had pulled that paper from the DC pack. Still, you have to look very closely to see the error. With the park unigrid and copies of the passport stamps I got at the meeting, that page filled up quickly. On the right page I found a yellow stripe print that helped bring out the colors of the trolleys. I actually pieced together a couple of scraps to cover the page but you have to look very closely to see it. I matted the photos in white to help them pop from the page.

At the meeting, I was greeted by Craig Bailey (I think) who had not only the stamp commemorating this convention, but a new stamp called a "Member Stamp". That's one of the stamps on the page above and it shows me as a member since March 31, 2008.

For some reason I also got a copy dated for the convention, but again I don't really think I knew what I was doing at the time. I was wowed by the meeting. There were speakers from the park and acknowledgement of people who had visited all of the national park units available.

I believe I made the right hand page first and then based the left page off of the color scheme of the right. The right hand page is my interpretation of a page sketch. There are various people and organizations who create sketches. You pick one that matches what you are looking for. Here is the sketch I used for this page. View sketch here. You can see that I went fairly literal on this interpretation, even using circles for the design elements. When you interpret a sketch not only do you get to choose a set of papers to match your photos, you can choose whatever embellishments work for you. I could just as easily have used stars, hexagons, or even stickers there. I also used the sketch in its original direction. You can always tilt the sketch 90 or 180 degrees to make it fit your photos for the layout.

During the meeting, the break was scheduled so that people could walk over to the Boott Cotton Mills to get the stamp available there. I joined a couple of people and took a quick tour before heading back to the meeting.

This became a 1-page layout to finish Lowell. Because it was a vintage set of rooms I chose a paper that reminded me of old-fashioned wall paper. A few sewing notions on the journal box helped with the story of the girls' jobs. Again, all photos were matted in white to help set them apart from the busy background.