Bonus Post--Happy Horizontals

Hello all! I'm posting a bonus entry tonight for a layout I just completed. You'll see more about this trip in a few weeks. In May 2021, I made a trip to Kansas, and one of my visits was to Nicodemus. This historic site commemorates the community founded by freed slaves after the Civil War. It became a rich cultural settlement with banks, schools, theater, all surrounded by a prosperous farming community. Though there were many of these founded, this one is the only one still inhabited. The population is quite small--less than 50 people remain. But they have a reunion once a year, and the descendants all return to celebrate the town.

I created this layout using a 1-2-3 sketch from Noreen Smith. It was from a package I purchased, so I cannot post the sketch, but it did create the horizontal paper strips you see that match the Lasting Memories challenge for this week. The papers are from the Botanical Bliss collection; most have a floral or butterfly print. But I loved this distressed wood with the green dot print on the reverse. I also used a darker background from the same paper pack with a small detail that might be wheat. There were no embellishments with that paper, so I dug through my stash and found a few laser-cut pieces that would provide a little more color to a fairly light page.