It's a Mad Mad Mad Mad World

It's time to feature the albums from the 2019 National Park Traveler's Club convention in Flagstaff Arizona. I created these albums shortly after I returned but only recently realized they had never been featured in the blog! So we'll be focusing on this for the next few months. The title is one of my husband's inventions. He likes to name our trips and because of the heat, this one became Madness in the Desert. He wasn't far off with that one as you'll see soon!

I turned to the Cricut to create this title page. As usual, I only realized I would need Volume 2 once I added so many pages to album one and realized there were many more to add. Once I decided on volume 2 I created the title page below (also on the Cricut).

I chose the same desert scene for the 2nd page though it was a bit smaller.  I also had the title "Desert" from a Cricut travel cartridge. I added the rest of the lettering from the Cricut fonts.

Here is the itinerary page. We did have travels outside of the National Park System, so you won't see every page of the albums. One highlight was traveling to  Tucson so Jim could tour the Boneyard of old Air Force planes. Below is one more photo I didn't know how to incorporate into a page but also seemed to summarize the "madness" component. When driving through Tucson there was road construction and I found it interesting that they gave conflicting advice on staying both left AND right at the same time!

These pages feature borders that  I made based on the CM blog. The left page is here. The only edit I made was the stickers in the 2nd circle. What I had left fit the border perfectly. The right page is here. Both borders were easy to put together. The itinerary is outlined using stickers from an older kit I had purchased. They are on foam dots and while that isn't my favorite adhesive, I generally leave them in place. I still have a few numbers and am still trying to figure out what to do with them since the earlier numbers were taken! Any ideas? Leave me a comment below.

The Second Bank is First Rate!

After the parade, I met up with my friend Melania and we got our cupcakes at the visitor center and then headed to the Second Bank to view the portraits. I enjoy the Peale Gallery, and now that I realize who Robert Morris is (as Morrisville, where I live, was named for him) I captured a photo of his portrait. I had not seen the detail in the Washington print before. Those 2 faces looking over his shoulder are "selfies" of the Peale brothers who painted the General. That made us look twice!

This layout is another of the layouts from the Fast Formula from Creative Memories and Noreen Smith. This is half of Sketch #5. I did mat the photos with red cardstock since the base page is so blue. The title sticker came from a sheet from Reminisce (though it's a pretty old page). The rest of the stickers are from a lot of kits in my stash. I've been going through them and picking appropriate stickers to finish all the pages. I still have a ton of Patriotic papers and stickers though!

It's Been Two Years Without a Philadelphia Post!

It's odd--the closer I live to Philadelphia, the less I go there! At least to the National Park area. However, I decided to attend the Independence Day Parade there in 2019 and spent the day exploring old and new elements of the city. 

Because this day produced so many photos, I'm designing an entire event album. I wanted to do a kick-off page and chose a laser-cut 12" square that had been a promotional item from Creative Memories. I layered scraps of patriotic paper on the back to highlight the stars and then added a 4x6 mat from one of the kits. The numbers are red ABC-123 stickers.

I started my day at the visitor center because that's where the stamps are! Because it was a special day, many reenactors walked around, played instruments, and made colonial-era items like shawls or doilies. But the most impressive display was that GIANT table of cupcakes! The bakery was still decorating but I could see how the final project would be impressive!

This layout, and many more from this album are from a formula Creative Memories and Noreen Smith developed. It was one of the summer 2023 classes and you can review the video recording here. I made the pages from various patriotic packs I had on hand and some border punches. During the summer of 2023, I only had these 2 pages completed. Recently, I added a few more embellishments and a journal box before declaring it "done". I rarely complete an entire album of pages before working on an album but I enjoyed having them done as I returned to working on it this spring. While I may never do the entire formula to create an album again, I have turned to the formula to get ideas for a layout and then referred to the directions for the dimensions to cut the pieces. Let me know in the comments if you would complete an album through the formula method.

More Men Need a Growlery

As I said in the last blog post, I did take the house tour. The lighting inside was dim (no electric bulbs) and I'm not sure if that was saving energy, protecting the relics, or just the absentmindedness of the rangers. Consequently, most of my photos are quite dark and I decided not to use them. I did salvage a handful for the layout as you can see. My favorite part of the tour is actually in the garden. The little house on the right is called his "Growlery" where he would go to be grumpy and to think.

This layout is based on one of the CM Virtual Crop sketches from May 2024 (Sketch #3). I used up most of the Welcome Home collection for this sketch. There wasn't much paper left, so I looked at the mat cards and chose several with nice prints on them. Each card would generate 6 punches (the squares are 1 3/4" each so I could use the CM Punch). They do NOT go to the outside edges of the paper, so I started on the top row on the right edge and moved left. Then I repeated that pattern on the other 3 rows. 

Up on the Hilltop

After the conference, I decided to visit another new park--the Frederick Douglass National Historic Site which was his home while in Washington DC. He wanted to look out over Washington and wanted a house high on a hill. He certainly found it! You can see that the view is wonderful. The visitor center is at the bottom of the hill, so fair warning--there is a climb involved in the visit. I was able to tour the home and you'll see a bit of that in the next blog. In this blog, I posed with his statue and the entrance sign.

I created this layout as part of the CM Virtual Crop for May 2024. This is sketch #1.  While I enjoy the quote at the top of the unigrid, when unfolded I loved the idea of showing the portrait of Douglass in its entirety. That took up most of one page so I concentrated on the right side (as I typically do) and found that the photos for the rest of the first 2 pages fit the sketch referenced above. I chose a light blue cardstock for the bases and used some of my remaining stash of Welcome Home. As I had one photo to add to the left, I mirrored the papers from the right page to provide some continuity between them. I thought the "Home" sticker provided a nice title for the layout. I'm fairly certain I use the laser-cut and sticker titles in ways CM never imagined!

The Tractor Story

My visit ended with a ride around the park on a wagon pulled by a tractor. I joined the children's group for this ride. A little bumpy but quite scenic and gives a nice overview of the park. We only stopped once and that's when I was able to take the scenic shot at the bottom of the right page. That is the Potomac River and Washington DC in the distance. Considering the bumpy ride I think the rest of the photos came out rather well. I did like seeing the old farmhouse.

This layout is based on a sketch I saved on Pinterest. As I'm playing along with Lasting Memories, I'll post a photo of it.  

You can also see the site I found it here. I again used Kelly Green cardstock as the base and added the plaid and gingham for the printed squares. I had already trimmed one photo to 4x4 so it was smaller than the sketch. I found a mat with similar colors (striped, not plaid though) and mounted it to give it a bit more definition. For the other photos, I wanted to keep them from blending in so I used more yellow paper as a mat. The tractors at the top of the left page are punched from more Kelly green cardstock. My die cuts (those I made on the Cricut) had tractor wheels. I paired them for some symmetry in the border.

Time for Milking

 I got bored (scared) of the chickens so I walked around the farm a bit. I came across the group in the milking barn and the ranger was hard at work showing everyone how to milk the cow. At the end of the lesson I asked to see how much milk was obtained--it wasn't as much as I thought it would be, but I suppose it was just for demonstration. 

This is another of the May 2024 CM Virtual Crop sketches (Sketch #4). I continued using the On the Farm pack. The cardstock on the bottom is Hot Fudge. Instead of a piece of paper for the 1" strips, I chose red cardstock and punched the barn/fence BMC cartridge. I didn't feel like cutting another piece of paper just for two 1/2" strips across the bottom so I decided the yellow scraps from the last layout were the least objectionable. I loved that there was a cow print paper. That is one paper spread across the 2 pages. The title came from a photo at the event--remember you don't HAVE to use a title sticker or card.

Don't Chicken Out

In May 2019 I headed to National Harbor (just south of DC) to attend an AST conference. As I wasn't a delegate, I had large blocks of time where I didn't have to be in a lecture, so I took the opportunity to visit some new locations. One stop was the Oxon Hill Farm which is part of the National Capital Parks management system. This working farm teaches about the history of farming and provides an opportunity to get into the country for those who live in the city. When I visited there was a group of school children on site already. Because they had just one ranger, the visitor center (the large red building below) was not open when I arrived. So I chose to wait on the porch. But I was CLOSELY watched by the chickens who were not sure I should be sitting there. I never realized chickens could be guard animals!

This is Sketch #2 from the May 2024 CM Virtual Crop. I chose the "On The Farm" kit from last year to create my layout. The base is Kelly Green cardstock. I chose 3 papers to layer on top--the white chicken wire just because there were chickens involved, the red because the tonal print is chickens and the yellow for a pop of a different color. The chickens are all stickers from the pack, but the title has 2 die cuts attached. This kit was so popular when it came out that the bonus embellishments sold out within a few hours and I missed them. So I bought the digital kit and used my Cricut to print then cut the objects. You can't tell the difference!