Fine Dining

Welcome back to the Seward House in upstate New York. Our last stop in the house was the dining room. I LOVE the lavish dining sets. Painted plates with a variety of patterns, ivory-handled servingware, and that gorgeous silver candelabra. What's most interesting about the table is the small vial you see on the right side of the layout. Supposedly, it has a few grains of tea that were taken from the Boston Tea Party. Now, having attended the reenactment of that event, I saw a lot of discussion about how it was frowned upon and that people were severely punished for attempting to remove any tea by secreting it on their persons. From a legal point of view, it would have also been a problem. Technically, anything that came ashore would have had to have been taxed. 

This layout is based on Sketch #4 from the CM Virtual Crop in June 2026. Instead of choosing a collection for the papers, I turned to Creative Memories' new supplement called Molten Lava paper. One side of each of these papers has an almost mirror-like quality, but with a subtle overall pattern. I used both gold and silver Molten Lava for the large squares. The base pages are dark blue shimmer cardstock (though the paper is so light I hesitate to call it cardstock). The small border elements are made with the gold molten lava paper and white shimmer paper. I thought those tones would match the elegance of the dinnerware, and I'm pretty happy with how it turned out. For embellishments, I found a few remaining stickers from a Blue and Gold collection from many years ago. The title "Timeless Treasures" seemed appropriate. I chose to remove the letters from the hexagonal border and cut the strip to add a bit more interest to the open areas of each page. Another border was placed along the bottom of the layout's left side. I found a simple journal card that seemed to fit the theme as well.

This is Us

Welcome back to my New York blizzard trip in March 2022. Remember that we are visiting the Seward house (of Seward's Folly fame). The next space we visited was a large drawing room or living room. Off to one side was a massive world globe. Mr. Seward was a world traveler, so there are many Asian pieces on display as well. And more books! As if the library wasn't big enough. (Though are they ever?) 

This layout is based on the June 2026 CM Virtual Crop (Scroll to layout #3). I searched through my Heritage papers and, though not a religious topic, chose the Keeping the Faith collection. There were the perfect brown and slate papers that matched the photos' tone. I found one laser-cut border for the bottom of the left page. The problem of having only one was compounded by the fact that it was only available in brown. A brown color on the right would not have worked, as it would just blend in with the paper. Punches to the rescue! This Diamond Lattice punch was very similar in design, and I could use it to punch the slate paper remnant on the left page. The 4x6 card on the right side is from the Homestead collection, but that blue was a good match, and it fit the design perfectly. A few smaller embellishments from my stash completed the look.

Book it

Happy Friday, everyone. I'm going to temporarily change the blog posting frequency. As I have some personal issues to work around and not a large supply of completed National Park pages, I'm going to return to weekly posts on Fridays starting today. Hopefully, in a few months, I'll be able to resume more frequent posting. Thanks for understanding.

Welcome back to the Harriet Tubman meetup in March 2022. In this post, we look at the Seward family library. I thought the ceiling light fixture had the most interesting design. It sort of reminds me of the figureheads you find on old sailing ships. And look at all those books! I'm not repeating photos there — each one is on a separate wall. I could get lost in here easily.

This layout is designed from the CM Virtual Crop for May 2026. Scroll to sketch #4. The creator of the sketch said it was a good way to display all the different papers in a single pack. It's also a great way to use up scraps of a pack! The squares at the top are great display boxes for stickers, letters to make a title, or just another place to display the lovely patterns. I didn't have enough small photos for the bottom row (you COULD fit 10 photos in this layout!). Instead, I made each row's center a black cardstock box. One became a journal box, and one became a title location. Each has a set of photo corner stickers to add a bit more interest. And with that, I finished up another pack of paper--Our Moments. 

What Folly

Welcome back to the Harriet Tubman meetup in Auburn, NY, March 2022. While in the area, Melania, Allan, and I decided to tour the William Henry Seward House. That name might not mean much on its own, but he served as Secretary of State under Abraham Lincoln and was responsible for purchasing the land that became the state of Alaska. (Remember Seward's Folly now?) He was a good friend to Harriet Tubman, and both he and his wife used this house as part of the Underground Railroad. There was a time when getting over the Mason-Dixon line was not secure enough--runaway enslaved people needed to get to Canada for true freedom. His house includes many of his personal belongings and notes. You can see the entry, parlor, and front staircase below, along with a desk he was given. It had served for one of the signatories of the New York State Constitution.

This layout may look unusual. The left side is the back of an 8 1/2 x 11 pocket page. The front of that pocket holds my Junior Ranger booklet for the Underground Railroad (I completed that at the birthday party in the visitor center). The design for that side is loosely based on one of Noreen Smith's formulas for the CM Journal-size album (see layout #3).

The right side of the page is based on the CM Virtual Crop sketch from December 2025 (scroll to sketch #2). For the paper, I used an Advisor-only pack called Welcoming Woodblock Prints. Those papers came with matching embellishments, and the pack includes a 4x4 card. I fussy-cut the title cluster from the card so that it fit in the space better.

A Diamond in the Rough

Welcome back to the Harriet Tubman meetup in Auburn, NY, in March 2022. Not far from the cemetery where Harriet Tubman is buried is this old church. In the 1800s, Harriet Tubman helped found it and often worshiped here. It covered several different denominations. It lay dormant for many years before the NPS started renovating and restoring it. While we were there in 2022, the renovations had just begun, and you can see how badly it needed help. Preview of coming attractions — by 2026, the church will be back in fine shape and open for visitation! I will have to plan a trip back to see it again.

This layout is based on a sketch from the CM Virtual crop in May 2026 (scroll to sketch #2). I used a very old paper pack from CM called "Be Bold and Flourish". The bottom papers had large circles previously cut from the middle, so they worked well as the base, with the peach paper layered in the middle to cover the gaps. I had enough other scraps to be able to create the four 2" squares on the left and the photo mats. The butterflies on the left are cut from a sticker border that  I found in my stash. There's no real reason to put the butterflies there, I just wanted something in the squares, and I think they fit best!

A Grave Situation

Welcome back to the Harriet Tubman Birthday celebration in March 2022. One of our friends from the club helped Melania, Allan, and me to find Harriet Tubman's grave in the very large cemetery in town. It was a snowy walk, but we wanted to pay our respects to her. There are a few other famous people buried here, but we'll save them for a warmer day!

This layout is based on one of the sketches from the April 2026 CM Virtual Crop. Scroll to sketch #3. I thought the wavy borders at the bottom worked well for a cemetery full of snow-covered tombstones. I chose an older pack, Winds of Winter, to complete the layout. The papers are not your traditional winter decor (it's more about rain than snow). This paper pack was originally made for our Australian advisors, but they chose to re-release it here in the US the following year. Since the papers were a little on the muted side, I chose a nice royal blue cardstock to serve as the base.

Snowbirds

Welcome back to the March 2022 visit to the Harriet Tubman Historical Park in Auburn, NY. After the celebration in the visitor center, our group headed outside to the Harriet Tubman statue for our official group photo. My friend Melania came a little later, so  I had a separate photo with her too.

For this layout, I used one of the CM Project Recipes for the "Flurry of Fun" kit, but used the "Glacier" paper pack. I didn't have the mitten border maker cartridge (yes, there are some I DON'T have!) Instead, I chose the boots, but that meant they needed to go across the bottom. I thought there was already so much snow in the photos that I would punch the boots from the lighter side of the paper and mount them on a dark blue wavy-cut strip. Since a few of the bird stickers in the pack were wearing winter weather gear, I added them to the layout as well.