50 States Album part 11--Massachusetts

The photos here are from my first trip to the NPTC convention in Lowell, MA. In addition to national parks, Jim and I went on a whale-watching cruise. It was the inaugural run of our first GPS unit as well-nicknamed Wall-E for the movie.

I based my layout on this page from Scrapbook.com that I saved to Pinterest. I found free cuts for the larger shells and fish along the bottom. The trickiest part was cutting the whelk shells--they are very intricate. I also got to use up some older CM shell stickers to help vary the size along the bottom.

The state outline was tricky because as I peeled it off the Cricut sheet it lost its form. I had to sort of trace the outline as I pasted it to the page. A layout like this gave me a chance to use a remnant paper since I wanted a blank space on the left to write the state name.

50 States Album Part 10--Maryland

I found it interesting that my best photos for Maryland came from 2 different anniversary trips. I guess living close to the state line, it made a foray down south feel like a getaway.

I modeled this page after the left page of this pin. I thought the use of an old English style font appropriate for the state name. I actually pieced together the state flag--it was sort of like putting a puzzle together. That, the crab and the state cut-out were all free Cricut cuts I found online. The base page of wood reminds me of OCMD even though none of the photos were from there.

50 States Part 9--Louisiana

Happy Valentine's Day everyone!
My next completed state is Louisiana. Jim and I took a trip in January 2017 and while there I was able to reach my 100th National Park Unit! I carried signs with me for parks 99 and 100 and Jim dutifully took photos for me.

This layout is based on this idea. I used a Fast-to-Fabulous page from the Gallivant line as the base. That included the bottom two borders of pink and the compasses. I liked using the shape of the state for the "L" in the state name. All of the letters were cut from the Cricut as was the mask. I didn't size the mask right so it covers a bit of the state name, but I think viewers can figure it out. The little dots were supposed to be mardi gras bead necklaces but they were cut so small I had difficulty putting them together successfully. I decided to just sprinkle them across the page since I had run them through the Xyron sticker maker and they were already sticky.

50 States Album Part 8--Is this heaven? Nope, it's Iowa

I only chose 1 photo for Iowa. This was a trip I took for a conference in Dubuque. I made a side trip to Effigy Mounds. Although I didn't arrive early enough to get into the visitor center, I was able to hike the trails and see the mounds. They were less impressive than I thought they would be and actually didn't photograph well. Maybe it was that it was spring and there were still a lot of leaves on the ground.

I used this pin as inspiration. I found a better background with the barn wall and window and then used the Cricut to create a set of barnyard animals. To change up the journaling I used strips of white paper layered around the animals. There typically isn't a need for a lot of journaling on my state pages since they focus on place.