Puppy Love

Welcome back to the 2021 Hudson River Valley tour. This layout features more of the upstairs bedrooms at Lyndhurst. The photos on the right and the bathroom are Helen Gould's room — the lady of the house. Her room is extra large with a seating area. I love that they included a small stuffed dog in a wicker bed in the display. I also like the table with room for books surrounding it. If it goes missing, check my bedroom. ☺

I based this layout on the Serenity Project Recipe from Creative Memories. I used the same border maker cartridge as the recipe, but returned to the Recollections paper pack for the decorative papers. I chose a green print with pinecones and a red floral print. They looked great next to each other as whole sheets. I'm not as happy with how they are cut and arranged into the alternating borders. But sometimes, done is better than good. I found a few small embellishments in my stash that matched the layout's color and tone. As we approach the end of the tour, little journaling is needed, so I wrote directly under the photos.

Starry Night

Welcome back to our look at Lyndhurst Mansion. Today's layout features upstairs photos — two different bedrooms and a unique relic of the building's original communication system. At the bottom of the left page, the "hole in the wall" was the original calling system. If one of the ladies of the house required a maid or other servant, they would call into that tube to summon someone! But the best feature upstairs is the starry night ceiling in one of the bedrooms. It's designed after a similar feature in a French chapel. Also on display is an original Tiffany lamp! 

I created this layout based on the CM Virtual Crop from December 2025. Scroll to Sketch #4. I focused on the blue ceiling and kept to my old CM Reminisce papers. The subtle design of the snowflakes complemented the photos. I used one sheet of paper across the middle. The borders along the edges are coordinating paper ribbon from the same collection. Some green-toned papers from the pack created the horizontal borders. I found a remnant of a journal box in a design that matched the fancy ceiling, so I immediately put that to use! A little dark blue cardstock was used to create the mats. Notice I changed the direction of one of my photos on the left. That left a bit of the cardstock mat, so I moved the smaller photo of the call box into that space. Remember that the sketch is a starting point, not a rule to follow. Make the layout work for you.

The Art Gallery

Welcome back to the 2021 Hudson River Valley tour. The last family to own Lyndhurst, the Jay Gould family, was made rich by the railroads. They collected many great paintings from their travels in Europe and displayed them in this upstairs gallery in beautiful vintage frames. With its vaulted ceiling and stained-glass window, the room is a work of art. 

I created this layout based on the January 2026 Power Hour with Meggan and Tessa. Incredibly, I finished one of their projects in the month they presented it! I selected a piece of plaid paper from one of my Christmas collections and layered the cut pieces onto gold cardstock. Because the photos are so detailed, I didn't want many embellishments. I chose the journal box with a touch of holly and a few holly-and-poinsettia stickers. I thought the title sticker with "reflections" was a good fit for this theme. It was hard to take a decent photo of the stained glass window in the daytime--postcards to the rescue! That's why I always stop in the gift shop on my way out of a tour.

Study Hall

Welcome back to my December 2021 trip through the Hudson River Valley. The next room in the Lyndhurst Mansion is the study. Again, it is decorated for Christmas with some greenery. The room is small but would be big enough for an afternoon tea or a brief visit. 

For this layout, I wanted to use the border you see along the top. I made this many years ago, and I thought that the greenery on the squares would match the room. I don't have any more of the tan diamond paper, but I did have some black diamond stickers. I mounted them on a strip of cranberry cardstock, then added a strip of striped paper down the center, mirroring the top border. That gave me a nice open area on the page to display the photos and the title box cut from the Recollections paper pad. Not much journaling was required, but I added a quick note with a white gel pen to indicate the room name.

Floor to Ceiling

Welcome back to my 2021 trip to the Hudson River Valley. This post focuses on one of the parlors at Lyndhurst Mansion. Each year, they hire decorators to create a Christmas feel for the tour, though some parts of the mansion naturally lean in that direction. In this room, there are painted allegorical scenes on the ceiling. You can see one panel below. The room overview and the other side of the ceiling are in a peekaboo pocket.

I based this layout on one of the Creative Life Scrapbooking Holiday layouts from 2024. Melissa Ullman has a video on creating the wreath using the CM Custom cutting system. I started to use the Recollections paper pad for the background and the wreath components (including the journal box in the middle). You might be able to see the pad at this eBay site. The red borders are washi tape, and the red bow is a very old CM die cut. To give it a bit more sparkle, I painted it with one of the CM Shimmer brushes. 

Chasing Shadows

Welcome back to the 2021 Hudson River Valley Christmas tour. You will recall that Lyndhurst was the site for the exterior shots of the TV series Dark Shadows. Inside, we were brought into this lovely room, where a manikin wore a dress reminiscent of that show. And as our guide explained, that's exactly why it is there! So many people come to see the outside that they designated this room for that show as well. But that has NOTHING to do with the family who lived here and does not reflect any of their decorative styles or clothing choices. Still, it's a lovely dress and room.

This layout is based on a pin I saved related to a Project Life blog. Click on "visit site," and it will take you to the place I originally found it. Click on that link, and you will find yet another blog using the sketch. It's wonderful how versatile it can be, and you can see some additional ideas for how to use it. I chose to use some old CM papers called Reminisce Winter. The pack was made in the early 2000s, and though double-sided, both sides were similarly colored. For example, the dark blue had one side with a border print and the other side was also dark blue with an all-over print. Still, I was able to use the blue and green with a roll of paper ribbon to create the background components. They are layered on Autumn Hay Shimmer cardstock. I used a couple of mats to create the fan spray of strips behind the photos. They are 6 1/2" long, so I joined 2 and hid the joint behind the photos! The title block is from another older CM collection called "Noel". Though the colors are different, both have a "heritage" feel to them that worked well with the topic.

American Gothic

Welcome back to my December 2021 trip through the Hudson River Valley. Our first location on Saturday morning was Lyndhurst. If this structure looks familiar, you might have watched the TV show "Dark Shadows". The exterior of this building was used for that series, though none of the interior rooms were used. This 19th-century structure is one of the best examples of Gothic Architecture in the US. The mansion (dare I say, castle?) is vast, but so are the grounds. There are additional buildings behind this building, and a couple of miles of road and trails leading through the estate. I was joined by friends Melania and Allan on Saturday, so you'll see several selfies of us through the layouts. 

This layout is based on a pin I saved (which I doubled). As I put this album together, I planned to use a tablet of heritage Christmas papers, but since we were outside and there was a baby sled, I decided to go with a more wintry theme here. I liked the blue and silver elements in the sketch and tried to replicate them with silver background paper and remnants from the Silver Bells pack. The silver cardstock is so old that it's 10 x 12. I "welded" the blue paper to the silver to create the 12x12 background I wanted. The old CM Reminisce Winter pack also came in handy for the thin borders and the small tag cluster in the bottom right. I made that tag many years ago and finally have a chance to use it! I used the CM custom cutting system to create the large bracket shape, helping to frame the papers.