Madness in the Desert Part 27--Move It

We got to the area where the ranger talk was to take place, but all the picnic tables seemed to be in direct sun, so we moved a couple. It turns out the quickest way to get people to volunteer is for me to grab a corner of a table. Many of the guys jumped up to help move the tables so everyone was more comfortable. (And luckily someone snagged a photo!) The ranger gave a great overview of the site. It's one of the best parts of going to a park site. 

This is a 1-2-3 layout from Noreen Smith and you can watch the video of her cuts and layout here. I liked the space for 4x4 photos but since I only had 2, I was able to fill the middle with a decorative box! The papers are from CM's Adventure pack. I liked the mountain background for the main pattern. Given that my cuts are a little different, I might have used some scrap paper to fill in the left and right sides of the layout. And that's a GREAT way to use your stash! The embellishments on here are not all from CM. The punched arrow border is one of the BMC punches. The chair, the picnic table, and the letters for the title all come from Paper Loft's camping collections. I think there is a scrap from my Club Scrap papers in the 4x4 decorative box as well. One of the 4x6 photos was replaced with a journal box made from a 4x6 piece of arrowhead paper from the Eastern National collection and a journal box from the Club Scrap stash. Didn't it all come together well though, considering it's 3 separate manufacturers?

Madness in the Desert Part 26--A Little Nutty

Sunday morning the club scheduled a Ranger Talk at the third of our host parks--Walnut Canyon. There was a bit of a line to get in that morning but we still had time to stop, along with several of our friends in the club, and get our sign photo. Jim braved the drive out (not much choice as we checked out of the hotel) and joined the group. I'm not sure he was feeling 100% just yet.

I made this layout during one of my Scrapbook Retreat weekends. I always provide a sketch challenge for the attendees, and this year it was directions to make this layout. The base page is a calendar page from CM. There is a 7x6 square grid pre-printed on the page. The directions provided the measurements for the blocks. You trim both the photos and the scrap pieces to the given measurements to assemble what looks like a mosaic. There are blank spots above and below so I added some sticker borders to fill the space. A few extra decorative stickers rounded out the page. I think this is the same pattern I used for the Great Western Loop title page and you can see the directions here.

Madness in the Desert part 25--The President's Dinner

After the meeting, we cleared the room and in the fastest turnover I've ever seen, we had dinner at large round tables in the same space. And as I recall, it was one of the best dinners I've ever had. I've had a lot of large gathering meals (either on these trips or at work) and I know how hard it is to get mass quantities of food correct. They deserved my 5-star rating :)

Not much happened at the dinner other than talking among friends. We never have enough time to do that at our conventions.

This is the back side of the Fast to Fabulous page. There were no mat openings, just that lovely large white block on the right. All I had to do was add a journal box and a couple of Cricut cuts (the title of course, but also the steak dinner with utensils). 

On a Roll!

 Woo Hoo! I earned another Top 3 award from Lasting Memories!

I'm posting a link here as you won't have seen this particular layout. It's one from my family album and I posted it on the Scrapbook.com Forums

 In October you'll be seeing additional posts from me as I was made guest designer for that month. I have 2 challenges done so far and I think you'll enjoy them!

Madness in the Desert Part 24--And the Award Goes To...

One of the best parts of being President is getting to hand out the certificates and plaques to our Platinum Award winners and the Lower 48 Completion certificates. The Lower 48 award went to Pat who is a good friend of mine so it was doubly rewarding. We usually have the superintendents help with this award as well.

This page started out as a Fast to Fabulous page. I added a 4x4 photo in the bottom right mat area which left a small section that I filled with more stickers from the Junior Ranger tablet. I also added a border from the Club Scrap kit. These awards acknowledge a lot of travel to the parks so the variety of embellishments is a perfect accompaniment.

Madness in the Desert part 23--Guest Speakers

Our guest speakers included the local superintendent for the 3 Flagstaff parks, one of the rangers, and a Route 66 National Trust representative. I enjoyed all of their presentations. As I may have mentioned previously, the convention coincided with the 50th anniversary of the first landing on the moon. I was born just 6 days later and so it has always fascinated me. Our ranger talk included a discussion on how the astronauts prepared for that mission by using the rocky terrain at the parks to practice with their equipment.

Can you guess the method for this page? If you said "Wallpaper" you are correct! That Route 66 sign was the perfect art for our speakers. Adding the vinyl stickers we got from the Flagstaff parks rounded out the details of the talks. I journaled right on the page as well!

Madness in the Desert Part 22--The Meeting

Saturday is the day for the big convention meeting. As president, I am the emcee. Here's a secret--we have a convention book that has the speeches all prepared!

These pages use the Under the Willow collection. I "earned" this by recruiting another consultant for Creative Memories (though it was nothing I did, the person just chose me!) The Western Region of the Eastern National Passport has green ink. For that reason, we had dark green shirts for the convention. So I went to my green papers and chose this theme for my pages. The page above is just a border maker cartridge along the top and mats for the photos. I wanted to add the Stamp pad but it was blending into the white cardstock in the pocket, so I mounted it on cardstock to give it a little contrast.

This year we had a special room for the kids during the meeting. One of our club members volunteered to host the room and she had games and projects for them so that they weren't bored with our "adult" meeting. They all seemed to love it!

For the back side of the pocket page, I mounted our name tags and ribbons on the same matching cardstock. While I used a different background paper for this page, it is roughly the same type of page with just a punched border at the top. I like my little decorative corner though!

Madness in the Desert part 21--Circle Time

Our group gathered in one of the ball courts for a ranger talk. I believe this is a reconstructed one as they were okay with us sitting along the edges. I had been up at the visitor center as people started gathering so I was able to get the top photo of everyone sitting around the edges. Once I joined everyone I could take some close-ups. Luckily we all share pictures and someone grabbed a shot of me sitting there too!

This is the reverse side of the Fast to Fabulous page shown earlier this week. There were still significant orange tones along the edge. The blue tones matched several of the shirts in the photos. The only thing I added to the page was the title in some small blue letters (that I believe I bought from Current many years ago) and some journaling. Fast to Fabulous indeed!

After the ranger talk, we had our group Junior Ranger ceremony back at the visitor center.

I print the groups as 8x10 size photos. I typically still trim a bit from the top and bottom but I need the width so that you can see all the faces. I'm 99% sure I followed a sketch for this but I can't find a copy of it. Still, it's pretty straightforward. If you calculate the triangle with a 6" side and bottom, the hypotenuse is about 8.4". Trimming the dark brown paper to that size square lets me rotate it to a diamond in the middle. The large photo then crosses that but you can still see the corners. When journaling on a dark color I like to use a white gel pen (not a chalk pen though--the letters get too thick). The Junior Ranger sticker is available from the visitor centers. I picked one up to use on this page.

Madness in the Desert part 20--Time Passages

After lunch, we had time to tour the visitor center and the site. This park protects an ancient Native American community (from around the 1100s!) There is some deterioration but that enables us to see inside the structures and the great rooms that they contain. Outside the dwellings were ball courts and other ceremonial sites. The rangers are quick to point out that this is not an abandoned village and that our responsibility to it is to preserve and remember the original inhabitants.

Let's start on the right side again! That is an older Fast to Fabulous page that had pre-printed photo mats. I liked that the orange color matched the tones of the dwelling rocks. I was able to use the 2 horizontal mat spaces (sort of) and trimmed another photo to fit in the vertical box. That left me a little room to journal. To create the left side of the layout, I matched the orange print with a half-sheet of printed paper as well as a laser cut strip that JUST fit the space on the bottom right corner.