Women Warriors

How appropriate that March is Women's History Month and my first blog of the month starts with the Women's Suffrage Movement!

Perhaps you have heard of the Sewall-Belmont house? Up until 2016, that was the name of this house. The National Women's Party, who had owned the house, donated it to the National Park Service and through a Presidential Proclamation, the new unit was formed. They changed the name to Belmont-Paul to highlight the work of the NWP crusaders. Several members of the National Park Travelers Club met there in April to see the new unit. We began our tour in the main entryway (though you don't come in the door under the stained glass transom) and you can see all of the busts and statues of prominent women in the suffrage movement.

This layout is based on one of my year-long class sketches. Since I didn't have to use CM papers, I used Paper Loft and Graphic 45 for the components. With the door, I thought the old key paper was a good choice for the layout. The box on the upper left is actually to be used for genealogy or family trees, but they make great title boxes. The title is from one of the CM die-cut sentiments packs. I've been turning to them more frequently.

Throughout the house, they have included "Selfie Stations" in mirrors. I tried to take advantage of them though you end up getting caught with the camera in front of your face. There are plenty of historical items such as banners and sashes used for various marches. They are kept in great condition considering the use and age of the items.

This layout is based on a bonus sketch for the April CM Virtual Crop. Bonus sketches tend to appear on Monday and you have about a week to put them together (vs. the weekend for the actual crop). But because they don't post the sketch on the blog, it's harder to link. For this sketch, I did upload it to Pinterest so you can see it here. The paper is from the CM Reminisce line--a rather old collection. Because they are so decorative I find them hard to use. I ended up cutting the decorations off the original pages and rearranging them into a semblance of the sketch on 2 background pages. I used mats to punch the embellishments or to create ribbons.