Centennial Part 10--A rainy walk

After the stop at Declaration house and a stop  for a drink at Dunkin Donuts across the street (probably how Jefferson could stay up late writing), I headed to the Independence Visitor Center. One of the scheduled ranger walks was to give an overview of some lesser known buildings and I thought it would be a good way to cap off the evening......On the left you'll see that I stopped outside the visitor center for a shot of our new plaque. The club raised funds to create and mount this plaque to the first NPS Superintendent. At one time all the parks had them but many are lost and some of the newer parks never received a plaque.

On the right is our walk that started out fine but within a block was stopped by a horrendous thunderstorm! Our intrepid guide was protected with a raincoat but the rest of us were not so lucky. We hunkered under the front of the Liberty Bell building and our guide finished her descriptions without the walk. It was rather enjoyable after all! We had someone take a group photo of us as "drowned rats" and I saw a rainbow on the drive back to the hotel so that created the essence of the page.

The layout on the left is a Fast to Fabulous page. The photos were in the "wrong" direction, but to me that just creates space for journaling!

The right side layout isn't fancy, but I wanted a large journaling box to tell the story. I kept the page colors from the left to create harmony--purple matting for the photos, a purple border at the top, and a purple journal box. I added some VERY old silver cloud stickers that with a few raindrops look like thunderclouds. I can't decide which way is "up" on the clouds. Should the darker stripe be on the top or bottom for thunderclouds? Comment below with your thoughts!

Centennial part 9--I Declare!

At the end of the trolley tour it was noted that Declaration House was still open and several of us journeyed down the street to take a tour. This is the home where Jefferson wrote the document and has a few rooms dedicated to how it looked when he lived here.

I don't often do wallpaper with 8 1/2 x 11 paper (in fact I think I've only done it once before during the DC convention), but I thought it would work here. This cardstock is a copy of the Declaration of Independence so I thought it was a great time to use it since I had only a couple of small photos of the house and plaques. This had to be a 1-page layout because the end trolley photo is on the left side. The title at the top is from some letter stickers found in a travel kit. Can you tell I created the second "A" in Declaration from an upside down "u"? I think it works. I really wish I was better at placing square letter stickers in a straight line. I just move too fast sometimes.

Inside we climbed the staircase to view his rooms. The mural on the left below is actually 2 stories tall!  The right photo is an enlargement of his draft with edits all over the place. This is also about 2 stories tall.

I based the left page on this Pinned Image. I then used a F2F page for the right but added some details to make them similar enough for a match. On the left it's an orange base, then 2 slightly smaller squares of coordinating paper. You can see the 3rd square matches the pattern on the right page perfectly. I love the journaling across strips of cardstock. On the right since the paper already matched I just wanted to add a border that mirrored the left page. The blue plaid is from the strip I cut to make the mat on the left. Instead of buttons I chose a plain tab. This would have been a good place for a small title if I needed one but I thought it fine to leave it plain.

Centennial Part 8--End of the line

After lunch we headed to the last 2 stops. First is a small, very old church called Gloria Dei. It is one of the oldest active churches in the US! We didn't get a stamp here, though sometimes it is possible. Instead we obtained the stamp later at the Independence Visitor Center.

I'm not sure why, but I seem to favor yellow pages when I scrapbook about churches. When creating this layout I knew that I wanted to separate the dog reference from the church as it's sort of an add-on humorous bit. I chose a 1/2 page cardstock with a decorative border and then used a full page of the same color on the left page. That became a great background for the photos. I just accented with a few candle stickers. It leaves the informational markers and the dog sign as clear "extras". I thought the dog sticker with paw prints a nice touch!

Our final stop is the smallest unit of the National Park Service. Thaddeus Kosciuszko was a Polish immigrant who fought in the Revolutionary War as one of the Engineers. He is a hero in his own country as well and their descendents are responsible for ensuring his home is maintained in tribute.

This is a very simple layout. I based my color choice on the last sticker on a page of Revolutionary War embellishments. By focusing on the yellowish coat, I chose paper and used a new border maker to create decorative edges. I matted one photo to bring the page together though I probably should have added more mustard yellow touches. The yellowish journal box on the right helps a bit. I only had 3 stars left for the left border. Adding them to the right would have looked a little more symmetrical.

The last thing we did before the trip was over was to get a group photo. Or as many as were still around. A few people had already wandered away before we could get the photo taken.

This paper serves as a great base for the larger group photo. I did trim the 8x10 down to 5x10 by cutting away the excess road and sky (as I mentioned when putting multiple photos on the convention page). The remainder fit perfectly between the pre-decorated page elements, and I think was a good end to the trip.

Bonus post, but no layouts!

I've shared this technique with a couple of people and everyone thinks I should share it more widely, so I decided to throw in an extra post for the week. This is one step in organizing your memories. One thing I do is keep a calendar on the kitchen wall and as events happen, I jot a note on the calendar--vacations, parties, school events, anything that I'll want to remember. But that's just half of it, you also need to keep the bits and pieces that go with those events.

 You've probably noticed that I keep a lot of "ephemera" or memorabilia or, as I call it, scrapbook fodder! How to keep it all straight? I use plastic bins (see example below).

You'll want to get the transparent ones as I'll describe in a bit. So, beginning on January 1st I dedicate one box to the year (and so far I can get an entire year's worth of stuff in one box). As the year progresses, I toss everything in that box--ticket stubs, postcards, even Christmas cards that I want to save. At the end of the year, I put the final items in the box and then top it with the calendar! Because the calendar is on top (and I'm using transparent boxes) I can see at a glance which year is in each box (and I'm about 5 years behind so that's important).

So that's it! Fairly easy and inexpensive but worth the little bit of extra effort!

Centennial Part 7--Next stop!

Our second trolley stop was the Edgar Allan Poe site. Though a little closer to the Independence visitor center, it's still a longer walk and worked into this schedule nicely. Again we divided into subgroups to not overwhelm the site.

I associate Poe with all things spooky, so I chose this graveyard page to be the background for the site. The "Next Stop" was designed perfectly (red and black) but actually comes from a train layout page!

I actually visited with the rangers in lieu of touring so that I could ensure everyone saw the movie and took the tour. One of the rangers on duty had given me a tour at my previous visit, a fact that I proved to him by finding a photo of him in my phone! After our tour we stopped for lunch. The trolley dropped us off between Pat's and Geno's--classic Philly Cheesesteak rivalry.

So this layout is the other "halves" of the scrapbook kits I previously used. Remember the President's Dinner page with the "Q"? The left page here is the other side of that layout. I thought the background looked like wallpaper/paneling and matched the theme of the house.

On the right is the other half of the picnic page. The item in the bun WAS a hot dog, but since I needed to write about cheesesteaks, I carefully took it apart, chopped up the hot dog paper into chunks and layered them back in with the "mustard" color serving as cheese. I'm rather proud of myself for that move!

Centennial Part 6--Trolley tour to Germantown White House

Sunday we planned a day-long trolley tour of 4 locations that are a little more difficult to get to within the park. The Germantown White House (also called the Deshler-Morris House) is several miles from the visitor center and requires a lengthy bus ride to visit the house. I did that once, and realized as we were planning the week that a chartered bus would be the best way to see it all. Due to space at the various houses we were only allowed 35 people on the trolley.

This page is the kick-off to this part of the trip and so I'm highlighting the photo of our trolley and the photos I took inside. I had to merge them by hand and somehow they are both a little angled, but I think you can see everyone. The border on the left is one I had in my stash. I created the arrows and signs with a very old cutting machine called a Slice. It works in the same way a Cricut does but was a little more effort to place the blade in the right spot. I'm glad I have a Cricut now! The red, white and blue theme is very patriotic and I was trying to weave that theme through various parts of the album.

We arrived a little early so had time to wander the street a bit before the rangers opened the house. We still had to split into 2 groups so my half remained behind to view the lobby and stamp while the other group toured the house (which was actually next door).

I was still working on the virtual crop, and this layout fulfilled challenge number 4. The border was made by using 2 older "design lines" (essentially 12" long sticker strips in various colors). The medallions were taken from the Creative Memories patriotic tablet. This had two pages of die cuts in the front and the semicircles were part of those die cuts. I like that it looks like I cut them in half but I didn't have to! The mats were made with paper from a different patriotic tablet I had. The paper is 8 1/2" x 11" and matting is a great way to use up the smaller sized paper. The stickers are from an older CM Reminisce line and I thought they matched the antique elegance of the house.

Our group was then allowed to head toward the house. The back door is locked so we had to wait outside on the porch a bit until the rangers could let us in. There are many period pieces and quite a few actual Washington artifacts inside.

The left page was scraplifted from this border. I only had the 3 colors shown so I had to improvise a little. I was happy to use up some older flower stickers. On the right is another F2F page from the Travelers line. The light floral pattern was perfect to highlight the antique feel of the room. I love all the delft work in there!

I can't resist a good historic kitchen. I think I would like to time travel back and spend a day working in that environment. Probably the excitement would wear off quickly though!

This page reverts to wallpaper technique. I had a great paper with beans and wasn't sure how else to use it. I think it's one of those dishes that would have been made in the 18th century so it worked for me. I did want to mat the photos to get them to pop from the page and chose a deep brown.