On the Trail of History

My travels in Arizona followed the Juan Bautista de Anza trail. He was a Spanish officer who was charged with leading groups of people from Mexico to establish towns in California. The journeys happened right around the same time that the eastern states were fighting for independence from Great Britain. He successfully led groups all the way to Monterey California.
I made this layout during the Creative Memories virtual crop in April 2019. The sketch can be seen here. The background paper is part of the CM Stone pack. The middle yellow (which I thought matched the sign in the photo well) is an older piece of CM paper. On top is a remnant of white brick also from the CM Stone pack. Since this was a story about settlers traveling I figured they would have taken some livestock with them and found a few horse and sheep stickers to decorate the middle of the page.

Next week I will share pages from the Tubac Presidio (that's where the blue and yellow signs were photographed). I visited a number of sites along the trail and this was sort of the kick-off page for that journey.

One of the other sites I stopped at was this church--Mission San Xavier del Bac. It is actually a notecard I picked up with scenes from the area. It made a good addition to the page but I couldn't make this a 2-page layout and still wanted to include the cover photo and some journaling. Peekaboo pockets to the rescue!

Just North of the Border

In September 2013 I traveled to the Tucson, AZ area for a conference. Afterward I did a bit of touring. One of my first stops was this little National Park Site near the Mexican border (I had to pass through a checkpoint to prove I was a citizen before returning north). It's a lovely old mission and well preserved.

The left page was made for a Creative Memories virtual crop. You can see the sketch here on my Pinterest board. Because this crop allowed us to use any Creative Memories product, not just from the previous 6-months released items, I dug deep into my stash and found the beige checkerboard print for the borders. The stickers are also older CM items. I'm learning now to figure out my background and THEN cut the photos. In this way I can crop to the same height for a nice, symmetrical page.The right page was made as a companion piece. I had a piece of the Mix and Match orange left with a nice ombre effect. I chose to add red checkerboard to give a bit more color.

While at the site I watched the video and walked through many of the buildings that were open. Amazing to see some of the original art work still visible.

These pages are also a sketch from the virtual crop and this time it was a 2-page layout. Again, I used the Mix and Match orange papers (this time the diamond print paper). I found the cute cut-out of a mission-style church as a free SVG. It only cut the black lines and the white "stucco" of the building. I backed the windows and doors with colored paper to give it a little definition. The journal box also had some brown tones and I really wanted the pages to pop. After sleeping on it, I realized that what I needed to add was more color. I had some older CM sticker packs which were just design lines and squares. Then I looked through my paper flower stash and found a few that I could stack that matched my purple and red tones. I really like the way it turned out.

Gorge-ous!

My mother and I had stopped at my cousin's house to visit with family. After we left, I managed to get my mom to agree to some more sight seeing and we drove up to the Columbia River Gorge. This is part of the Lewis and Clark National Historical Trail and we had a great time seeing some of the waterfalls. We didn't see them all because some of the trails were a little too wet or steep and we didn't bring sufficient gear for that.

The left page of the layout actually goes along with the single page below (which ends the album). Periodically Creative Memories distributes incentives for people to join as advisors. As a current advisor I'm allowed to purchase one for my own use or to show to people so that they understand what is available. For this period, it was a special project recipe with papers unavailable in the regular line. I put the kit together and thought that these scenes from nature would be a good fit.

The right page is a new technique I bought. The company is called Photo Dies and they make metal cutting guides that can be arranged into decorative patterns on the page. What excited me about this is that the dies make the cuts for you and so you are ensured of having straight edges. If you've seen some of the trendy templates that make something similar you know that you need to use an exacto knife or fussy cut to get the pieces. I am not really good at that and so when I've tried it I've always been upset with my jagged pieces that don't look neat. This takes care of it for me and I'm really happy with the way it turned out. I made this at the retreat house where the machine is so that I could test it out and I'll be looking for my own machine now and more dies!

The composition of the pages was a little different for me. The Multnomah Falls are actually in the middle of the drive, but as the most elegant and photo-generating, they got their own page. I like that this ends the album as it highlights the visit with my mom.

As I mentioned above, this is the right side of the layout. I did actually turn it 90-degrees though because I had more vertical photos. I think having this as a stand-alone page allowed my brain to think about how to utilize the background. I also could have just used the mats in a different direction as I completed the layout very close to the time that I mounted it in the album, but I like this technique better. It helped that the chevrons now look a little like a waterfall next to the title picture.

A Park that Crosses the Line

While in Oregon City, my mother and I visited McLoughlin House. This residence is the original house of a physician and politician from the days of early settlement. It actually was positioned further toward the river but had to be relocated due to land movement. However, it has been restored to it's appearance from the 1800s.

This 2-page layout is actually taken from a 1-page idea which you can see here. The border is on the left page and the journal box is on the right. The border and right page papers are all from the discontinued Archivers line from CM. The left side paper that looks a bit like diamonds is from a very old CM line which actually didn't fit the entire page. That's why I picked this layout--the border covered the missing space! The photos on the right are actually all postcards that I purchased at the house. They were matted with some tan paper so that they didn't get lost on the dark background.

On Sunday morning, after dropping my mom at church I visited the other half of the Fort Vancouver unit which is actually in the state of Washington. Portland is very near the border so I didn't have to go far, but it is odd that the unit is comprised of sites in 2 states even though they are close in distance. I did not get to see much of the fort as I needed to return to pick up my mom and rejoin the family festivities but I did see the movie and tour the museum.

This page is a pre-designed cardstock from the previous CM company. You can see that I didn't really follow the suggested photo spaces, but I don't really think that it is quite as noticeable. The kit came with matching journaling cards and I was able to use one with a car to describe my visit. The other 2 items are just memorabilia--postcard and unigrid. Quick completion!