Too Salty

Welcome back to the 2021 Four Centuries in a Weekend series. The next visit was to the Salt Box House. Originally, salt boxes had a very steep slope on the opening edge. Here's an example of one.

Compare that to the slope on the back side of this house. This house style was popular in the 17th and 18th centuries, especially in snow-prone areas, because the steep slope allowed snow to slide off without damaging the roof and deflected strong winds. 

This is another stop on the Crossroads of the American Revolution, but it lacks a substantial piece of war history. The houses (2 houses joined) were built well after the War of Independence, though they contain artifacts from the war era. The collection is just that — a collection of donated items. Many of these historical societies need a professional curator to create distinct displays and stories for the houses. On the plus side, we found a historic nursing outfit, and as both Mel and I are nurses, we enjoyed posing with it. There's another oxen yoke too..... (Read the journaling on this blog post.)

This layout is inspired by Tammy McEwen's end-of-year challenge. Initially, it was CM's March 2025 sketch, which you can see here. Scroll to sketch #3. I had used it previously on this John Smith Chesapeake layout. You'll agree that the change of paper creates a dramatic difference between the 2. This layout uses Memoirs and Memories paper, and finishes off my stash of it. I chose a dark background and light-toned documents for the various elements, with the last edge in dotted gray. Instead of punching a design, I simply tore the edges for a vintage feel. The title box is from one of the original CM Archiver's collections. The "What a Trip" title sticker is printed in white, so it needs to be mounted on a dark cardstock strip to be visible. A few "antique" flowers from my stash finished off the layout.

Bonus post--Making it Work

Hello all! I'm adding a bonus post as I'm playing with Lasting Memories Challenges again. This post shows some of the downstairs areas of the Franklin D. Roosevelt House in Hyde Park, near Poughkeepsie, New York. This is part of my Hudson River Valley tour, which you'll see soon. When FDR contracted Polio, the house had to be modified to accommodate his wheelchair. The stairs to the downstairs rooms were replaced with ramps. Luckily, the family had put in an early elevator to haul luggage from the bedrooms to the entry hall. FDR used that for transport upstairs.

I put this layout together for the Lasting Memories challenge: using a quote. Since that's the only rule, I started by looking for a sketch to follow, and I chose this sketch from Club Scrap. They post a bonus sketch for those who receive monthly kits. I found a few of the layout instructions, so I was able to use them for my pages. I chose papers from the latest CM Decades packs. This one uses papers and stickers from the 1920s-1930s, which are right in the home's time period. I wanted to highlight how the Roosevelt family accommodated FDR's paralysis from polio, beginning when he was 21. I found a sticker that says, "Happiness depends more on the inward disposition of mind than on outward circumstances" (Benjamin Franklin). I thought that an apt saying for these photos and his drive to overcome his illness.

Scrapbookers Unite!

Welcome back to my 2021 Four Centuries in a Weekend trip. Our next stop was the Carter House. There is no significant reason this house is included in the Crossroads of the Revolution. It's the oldest house in Summit Township, preserved and moved to its current location by the historical society. No battles here; no prominent citizens lived here. It's just a lovely old house. It is currently home to the Historical Society, and what I loved most was the stacks of scrapbooks from the area. For anyone who wonders what will happen to their albums when they are gone, you should offer them to historical societies. They like seeing the everyday lives of people in the area.

This Layout is based on another of Tammy McEwen's end-of-the-year challenges. It's from the February 2025 CM Virtual Crop; you can see the sketch here. Scroll to sketch #3. I used Legacy of Love for the floral background paper, the title card, and the stickers. The borders along the edge of the patterned paper are from the Burlap and Lace collection. The title card matched the sketch perfectly, and I needed one more photo spot to complete it. Serendipity!

The Fighting Parson

Welcome back to the 2021 Four Centuries in a weekend event. This layout focuses on the Caldwell Parsonage, which is a fancy way of saying "house where the preacher lived." You'll remember that I mentioned Reverend Caldwell when we saw the church he preached at in Elizabeth, NJ. He and his wife, Hannah (pictured on the trading card), lived here with their 10 children. 

The Battle of Connecticut Farms Church, discussed in the last blog, is relevant here. As the British soldiers retreated, they streamed past this house. A shot was fired, which entered the home and killed Hannah. Was it intentional? Was it to get back at her husband, who had been preaching Independence along with the bible? No one really knows. But the moment is sealed into Union County history as the portrayal of her murder is featured in the official County Seal! The original house was, of course, burned by a Loyalist mob, but this home was rebuilt on the original foundation. 

This is the site of the local Historical Society, and so the contents range from the 1700s through the 1800s. The braided hair death memorial is typical of the 19th century, but it fascinates me. I had to take issue with the guided tour, though. We were shown a hip bath and told that families bathed in order, all in one bath, and that by the time the youngest were washed, the water was pretty dirty, which is where the phrase "Don't throw the baby out with the bath water" originated. This is FALSE. Please stop repeating it. That phrase and others are debunked in this Snopes page.

This layout is based on another challenge in Tammy McEwen's end-of-year event. This one goes back to the CM November 2025 virtual crop, and it's the same sketch I used for the East Jersey Olde Towne Print Shop. Because it's different papers on the same sketch, you'd never know that they are from the same source material! It also helps that I had flipped the first layout horizontally. This one uses the Legacy of Love pack. I found 2 sticker borders for the right-side page, then a laser-cut border with a similar pattern for the left vertical strip. I thought that, based on Hannah and Reverend Caldwell's family life, Legacy of Love was a fitting title for this layout.

Fine Dining

Who else is scrapping during the snowstorm? I am working on my Hudson River Valley tour from December 2021. I stopped at Lyndhurst Castle, which you will see in a few weeks, but decided to play along with the Lasting Memories challenge this week. I chose these photos of the Lyndhurst massive dining room, all decked out for a fancy Christmas dinner. Who would have thought the fancy dinnerware would include pheasants painted on the plates!

As I mentioned, I based this layout on the Lasting Memories challenge (#783), which included this sketch of 4 photos. I turned the layout 90 degrees as my photos were all horizontal. I am using a 12x12 tablet from Recollections called Holiday Elegance. The paper is rich and luxe, with gold-foil pages on maroon and green papers. I won this pad at one of the crops I attended, and it will feature prominently on the Hudson River Valley pages. I chose one paper for the background and then another for the large 11x11 mat. I only needed a small border (one of the pages is a stack of several nice borders that I cut apart) to complete the sketch. The green and gold paper takes up the job of embellishing! I found a coordinating journal box in my stash to detail our trip.

But It's Not IN Connecticut!

Welcome back to the 2021 Four Centuries in a Weekend event for Union County, New Jersey. This blog picks up on Sunday morning, and my first visit that you'll see on the blog was to Connecticut Farms Presbyterian Church. Apparently, they liked the name Connecticut, and the original settlers were primarily farmers. The church was also the site of a Revolutionary War battle. I actually visited here twice. I arrived and was awaiting Melania's arrival, but she was at Caldwell Parsonage. I went there to meet her, then returned. While she toured the church, I explored the graveyard further. Lots more 18th-century graves here, but in excellent condition! My favorite stone featured the "autograph" of the stone carver. British soldiers who died during the battle are in a mass grave at the center of the graveyard. That's on a peekaboo pocket that isn't pictured, but you can visit to see the layout in its entirety!

I made this layout during Tammy McEwen's End-of-the-Year scrapbooking challenge. She collected twelve of her favorite double-page layouts from the CM virtual crops this year and packaged them so we could work through the pages quickly in December. Each layout completed earns a ticket toward her prize of one of her classes. This layout was part of the July 2025 Virtual Crop, and you can check out the sketch here. Scroll to challenge #3. As I did with another church page, I selected 2 different background papers — brick on the left and patterned on the right. The light blue cardstock becomes the mat for all the photos. I used some leftover stickers from my stash for decorations. The church sticker is the oldest — likely at least 20 years old. But it still works.

My Favorite People

This post is the last in the Liberty Hall Meetup series from my October 2021 trip to the Four Centuries in a Weekend Event. The final photos inside the house are of the butler's pantry. There was a dumbwaiter and the butler's safe, where all the silver was kept. The last 2 photos are of our meetup group. You can see that for October, the weather was nice, as we were all in short sleeves, standing on the porch of the visitor center. We went out to dinner after the tour. You may remember that my friend Deb once ordered broccoli for breakfast, and I've never let her forget it. Broccoli for dinner is pretty standard, but I had to photograph it anyway!

For this layout, I turned to one of Cheryl Even's sketches from Split Coast Stampers (I flipped it horizontally to place the meetup on the right). I liked this layout because I printed the group photo as an 8x10, and it provided ample space to highlight it. I chose the papers and embellishments from Sweet Blossom (one of the secret boxes from 2023). You can see I didn't have as many photos as the layout indicated. I substituted one block for the title element (a cutapart block from the kit) and a journal box. I debated adding more of those elements to complete the sketch, but ultimately decided to leave the border and paper uncovered for a nicer effect. I was so happy to find that little title sticker "Fave People" in the kit, though!