Cabin Remnants

The display for Valley Forge caught my attention because it highlighted the aftermath, not the actual encampment. Once all those soldiers walked away, the huts would have fallen into disrepair and the flowers and trees would grow in the mulch created by the decomposing structures. 

I made this layout for a contest that Creative Memories held for their Independent Advisors. We were asked to use pens for a layout with creative journaling and drawing. I used some of the collection called "Winter Woods". The log papers were perfect and didn't convey a wintery theme at all. The overall layout was based on a sketch from Noreen Smith for May 2018. You can see that I got my triangle cuts backward, but the theme still worked. 

I used the striped background paper as my journaling lines. The doodling is the leaf/branch along each of the wood triangles. I used the Hello Autumn Journal Template to color in on the sides. I added a couple of clusters from the Winter Woods pack--mostly leaves and trees, again--no real winter scenes. The best news is that I WON. I got a free set of papers, stickers, and embellishments for putting this page together!

Wild Flowers

My next photo op was for a planned garden representing Acadia. Now if you looked at the website for Acadia (I've not been here yet) you would see the coastline, hiking, auto tours. But you might not expect to find a cultured garden! Indeed there is space set aside for preserving the special flora of the area and this display presented that perspective of the park.

If you remember the last layout, I used a Fast-to-Fabulous page as the base. This is the back of that page and it worked PERFECTLY for the layout. I mounted my 2 key photos in the area of the pre-printed mats (CM has since stopped printing mats on the page if you want to try this type of layout--it makes for a very flexible layout). I added 3 clusters of stickers--one near the journal box, one at the left side, and one at the top right (including the title). All of this comes from the Secret Garden embellishments.

The Rustic Look

One area focused not on a specific park, but on the "Rustic Style" used in many parks to evoke a sense of nature while allowing for groups of people to gather. This stage and campfire ring fall into that category. As I visited on a weeknight, I'm not sure if they used this for classes but I wouldn't be surprised. It has a very cozy feel to it.

I didn't go as far back in time for this layout, but I completed it in March using a sketch from my January class. It's always nice to get caught up! I kept with the "rustic" feel by incorporating textured paper. That doesn't mean it is thick, but rather you can see the depth of a photo or textile on the paper. The background page is from the Secret Garden Fast to Fabulous pack. Again, a lovely washed look helped set the tone. I added a scrap of the stone paper down the middle as an anchor for the elements. Although you don't see much of the middle, it is there. I punched 3 circles out of a gray textured paper for the middle and then layered the photos. The embellishments were a mix of Paper Loft (for the title words) and some old CM rustic (or perhaps they were called Rugged?) stickers. I have to say brackets always stump me but I think it worked well for this title.

Home Town Crowd

Of course, Philadelphia had to be highlighted--the flower show is on their home turf! In fact, there is a ranger presence here from INDE which you'll see later. Independence National Historical Park encompasses not just the Liberty Bell, but also Independence Hall, Thaddeus Kosciuszko, and Edgar Allan Poe houses. While Poe will be highlighted at the end, only the Liberty Bell is used to represent the park. Still, the use of red, white, and blue flowers to create the bell was attractive. 

I was finally able to use a sketch from the Scrap Your Stash class in October 2019 (about 18 months before I completed this layout!). Though I cannot show you the sketch, I can say that I followed it faithfully though I turned it 90-degrees to accommodate my photos. There are a lot of different pieces here, but luckily they all had the same tones so they worked together well. The background page gave me the "blue" (I don't recall what pack that came from). The red plaid in the middle is from an 8 1/2 x 11 Americana tablet that I bought when I first started scrapbooking. Nice to be able to use it up! The border is from a pack I bought from Our Memories For Life--a spin-off of the old CM company by one of the original founders. I don't have much of their materials because it is honestly difficult to navigate their ordering page, but these borders were a great find. The Liberty Bell photo sticker came from a pack purchased at the INDE visitor center. The cartoon-like sticker and the other random elements came from an older CM Fourth of July kit. It sounds like a lot, but in the end they all pulled together for a fairly straightforward layout.