Convention in the Capital--part 5: George Washington Memorial Parkway

On Monday, Jim and I joined an all-day tour of the George Washington Memorial Parkway. As you can see from the left page, there are a LOT of sites along the route. While we didn't see everything, we did make a good dent in the number and I felt confident counting it as one of my visited parks. Our first stop was Fort Hunt Park. Like many places along the route, there isn't a visitor center. In fact, this area is used as a local park with picnic tables and ball fields. It was great that we could explore with a ranger and get the history of the park.

The left page was created from an 8 1/2 x 11 piece of paper from the Washington DC scrapbook kit from Eastern National. I placed it along the right edge of the page and then filled in the left with a bus sticker (which conveniently had a DC tour theme), a picture of the side of our bus, and a unigrid. That left a little room for journaling about the trip we were to take.

The right page was one of our first stops. I actually struggled with this page as I didn't think I needed a double-page layout, but I wanted the group photo in the 8x10 enlargement. Once trimming the grass and sky, it gave me a bit more room for a photo of our ranger from the talk and a postcard that does a good job describing the importance of the site. Then I added a scrap of paper with tones of grass and flowers on it. I think it finished the page nicely!

As we continued along the route, we stopped at a site that was a civil war installation to protect Washington DC. They have some cannons left in place. Although there is a sign describing the area, it was good to have the ranger as well. On the right, we stopped at a wetland area. Part of the site includes a small structure across the river which is what the bottom photo shows.

I once again started with the right page, and chose a Fast-to-Fabulous page for the 2 photos. A lot of the F2F pages fit just 2 photos so when I have a small amount, I sort of gravitate to that stash to find a color appropriate. To match the right page, I chose papers in similar shades on the left. I chose this page sketch to create the layout Sketch inspiration. You can see that I moved the decorative elements, mostly because my photo was vertically oriented. The circles were actually laying around in  the "extras" pile. Love when that happens.

Our lunch stop was at Great Falls park. Although I don't have pictures of the lunch, I chose the "Picnic in the Park" as the theme for the page. These falls are just across the river from our canal boat ride so we got to see them from 2 directions.

This layout was made as part of a Creative Memories virtual crop. If you look at this page Challenge page and scroll down a little you will see the 2-page sketch. I chose the colors from the photos--blue from the water and orange from the visitor center sign. A quick way to make the banners seen on this page is to cut a rectangle of the approximate length and width you want. On the side you want to make into a banner, fold the paper in half (you don't need to crease the paper) and cut from the open end corner toward the fold. When you open the paper you will have a symmetrical banner end. If you want a pointed banner instead of the "flags" seen here, just cut from the fold up toward the open end.

One of our last stops was the Clara Barton house. I was very excited to visit here given my medical background.

The left page was another virtual crop challenge (Challenge page). The 4 blocks along the middle aren't exactly the same size as they are in the sketch. Part of that is due to the fact that I cut the photos before I realized what I was going to do with the page. Then again, a sketch is a starting point, not a mandatory layout. What I remember about the house most is her use of gauze to create a ceiling (which is still in place). For that reason, I picked bandages from my medical stickers folder to decorate the page. The border below the unigrid is the Creative Memories Medallion Frame Chain border. I toyed with the idea of keeping the middle pieces to decorate the opposite page but decided against it. The bottom right corner is a die cut from the EN DC Scrapbook kit (similar to the Great Falls Tavern I used previously).

The right page is wall paper. The paper is from an old Creative Memories package called Reminisce Birthday. I liked the red and white stripe and the antique feel to the paper. I ended up using all memorabilia on this page--the left 2 items are postcards and the right is the brochure for the house. I think they really told the story better than my photos did.

That ends this convention. Next week we move to the southeast region and our beach trip for the year!