Decisions, Decisions

We found a place where the trail was split as we walked along. We weren't prepared for that, so we stood there contemplating. Ultimately, we decided to head to the right. It is supposed to be a loop. If that's true, we should have been able to return to this point. We never found evidence of a loop, though. You'll see in the next post that we came across an old homestead and then retraced our steps back to this point.

This is the third laser-cut page. I love the little owl hidden in the trees. You don't even see him until you place a small circle behind him (yellow would work well here, too). I felt lucky to have this pack with me as I assembled these at my 2024 Croptoberfest event. It helped speed up the process of completing the album.

Oh, Christmas Tree

As we walked the trail, Jim came across a tiny evergreen that reminded us of the Charlie Brown tree from the Peanuts Christmas cartoon. Apparently, when Jim was a boy, he tried to get his family to choose something similar for the family tree, and, well, no one forgets something like that! So I made him pause for a couple of photos--one a close-up so you could see the branches against his pants.

This is another page from the Creative Memories 2023 Croptoberfest pack. It's one of the laser-cut pages mounted on decorative paper, contrasting nicely with the blue plaid and the cut-out areas. The three circles at the top are places where smaller photos could go. Since I had nothing for those, I filled each with punched shapes and embellishments. Since the pages had been completed, these were a breeze to assemble!

Burn Baby Burn

After leaving the visitor center, we felt like hiking in the woods. The ranger's information pointed us to a nearby trail called Burnwood Trail. It was an easy hike through old-growth trees (though we also found some new growth). The trailhead was nearby, so we chose to hike before eating lunch.

This layout was created from the Creative Memories 2023 Croptoberfest collection. Here's a sample of the materials.

Creative Memories offers packages with extra paper and laser-cut frames along with an instruction booklet to create additional pages. I put them together for my customers so they can see the finished products and so that I can warn them of any typos or places to pay special attention when cutting. And that's why there is a little tear on the frame on the left page. I had used repositionable adhesive, but it has gotten stronger over time. After a year, it ripped as I tried to edge my photo underneath. OOPS!

Gorge-ous!

By the fall, I was getting worn out and needed to escape. Still, where do you go with a pandemic raging, no cure, and no vaccine? Well, the middle of West Virginia sounded remote enough to be safe, and the possibility of seeing the changing leaves was enough of a draw to get us out of our house. In fact, Jim's sister also needed a break and joined us. We rented a cabin near New River Gorge National Scenic River (well--it was at the time; now it's a National Park!) On our first day after travel, we headed to the visitor center to get our bearings and, of course, my stamps.

You may recall this post from last summer—it was the last of my guest designer spots. The post provides details on the layout.

To better view the bridge, follow the boardwalk behind the visitor center. It is 178 steps down (and back up!) It was much more crowded than I thought it would be for a mid-week October visit. Then again, it was near Columbus Day, so many people had the same idea. So, that meant masks as we did the walk.

I wanted to use the paper from Scrapbook Customs featuring the bridge photo. I made that the left side of a layout. The right side is the 8 1/2 x 11 pocket page where I added the information sheet on the bridge. I folded it to see the best of the highlights. I matted our photos so they would pop from the page.

For the final pages on the boardwalk trail, I turned to a set of pages I had made at one of the Paper Loft classes at the Lancaster Scrapbook Convention. I carefully restructured the left page to retain many of the original elements but trimmed it to 8 1/2 x 11 to fit the pocket page. I felt rather proud of myself for figuring that out!

The Last Supper

During the early part of the pandemic, restaurants were forced to close as they were natural places where the virus could spread. Many found ways to serve take-out (including take-out bar service) to help cover some expenses. City Tavern asked people to purchase gift cards during that time to have funds to continue operating. I love that restaurant and its chef, so I ordered a $50 card. I was happily surprised to receive the card with a handwritten Thank You note from the chef!

In September 2020, there was some ability to reopen the establishments by utilizing open-air seating. Jim and I used our gift card and went to Philly one evening for dinner. I enjoyed it very much, especially as we hadn't had a chance to dine out in months. It was a nice treat that I didn't have to cook. Sadly, just a few months after our visit, City Tavern announced they would have to close permanently. It was one of the saddest days of the pandemic for me.

I completed this layout as part of Tammy McEwen's End-of-Year challenge. I originally finished this during the April 2024 CM Virtual Crop (scroll to sketch #4). For this version, I used papers from the Silver and Gold packs, including a newer part of the "Enchanted Memories" line that was part of the winter 2024 releases (bonus paper you could only get from your consultant). I found a couple of embellishments with scrolls and Old English fonts. That pulled out the 18th-century vibe with our pewter cups!

Meeting Virtually Everywhere

On Saturday, I donned my new convention shirt. We had a special one produced with a logo indicating the virtual convention, and everyone was to order it in the color of their home region. I live in the Mid-Atlantic, so I got a light blue shirt. On the same weekend, I attended a virtual crop and worked on pages from a previous convention. Therefore, my submission to the forum for that day included both the shirt and the scrapbook pages. Later in the afternoon, I joined the convention meeting. We had several speakers, door prizes, and trivia.

This page is based on one of the CM December 2024 sketches (scroll to sketch #1). Like my Junior Ranger page, I used the "Leave Nothing Behind" kit and augmented that with "Set Up Camp." The 2 collections have similar patterns and color profiles, so it is easy to mix and match the 2. I created the circles for the banners by punching with the CM Circle punch. I was short by one green circle. It did not matter as I found a sticker I could put in its place. The other circle embellishments fit into the paper circles very nicely.

By the way, if you want to see the full layout that I'm holding in the photo, check out this post from January 2021, where it was featured!

The Shirts on Our Backs

This post is going out on New Year's Eve. I hope you all have had a wonderful holiday season and will be ready for more of my National Park Adventures in 2025!

Our club made the difficult decision to cancel the in-person convention for 2020. There were too many concerns about Covid and large groups (and I'm not entirely sure we'd be able to get into our hotel rooms). The first thing the club did was to encourage our members to take photos of themselves in prior convention shirts. A photo at a park was ideal, but if not possible, just a picture in the shirt would suffice. I wore the New Bedford Whaling shirt and posed in front of the house during the week.

This layout is based on this sketch.

I'm playing along with Lasting Memories, and their challenge for this week is to base a layout on a sketch. That sketch is from 2021, so I've been holding on to it for a while! I didn't use the "polaroid-style" mat for the photos as I turned one of them into a journal box, which would have looked a bit odd. This paper is from "You Got This," which has a great set of tie-dyed papers. The tones connected with that orange-ish shirt, and the embellishments included more modern teen vibes, like the cell phone. But I like the way they all connected perfectly!.

On the Friday before the convention, I chose the Flagstaff shirt from the year prior (it's what I would have worn at the convention, of course!) I wanted to do more than photograph myself in my yard, so I walked a block over to the Grey Stone monument. We live near where William Penn signed the treaty with the Native Americans for what is now Pennsylvania! The closest I got to a National Park was the Trenton Barracks--part of the Crossroads of the American Revolution trail. The gates were closed, so I could just peek above the fence and see the tops of the barracks. That's why I got my photo with the sign. Although I was outdoors, other people were around, so I had my mask on in that photo.

For this layout, I followed a sketch I had used once before (not shown in the blog; I used it for one of my Lighthouse Challenge pages). For December 2024, I've enrolled in Tammy McEwen's end-of-the-year challenge. She brings back sketches from the CM blog throughout the year so that we finish pages matching the year (this year, we will finish 24 pages if we do them all!) (Inspired by a Creative Memories sketch and #TammyMcEwen #Tammys2024Challenge) The paper pack is Happy Camper. It didn't include journal cards, so I used a couple from a pack I won at a non-CM crop many years ago. I think they were from Close to My Heart, but I can't be sure. I chose a border punch rather than punching individual circles for the border. If I wanted more pop (though this particular page is fine), I could have also added more circles under the decorative arcs. Because the background paper is so busy, I chose to mount my photos on white mats, making them easier to see.