Centennial Part 3--The Brearley House

On Friday, we arranged a tour of the Brearley House in Lawrenceville, NJ. It is not normally open on Fridays, but they were happy to arrange 3 separate tours to accommodate all of the members who wanted to go. There are some stamps there that are hard to obtain, so this was a very popular opportunity. Although we had people sign up for the 3 different start times, few actually showed at their appointed hour. But between those showing up early for one and late for another, the tours were still the right size!

This layout was created during a virtual crop from Creative Memories. To get people ready, there was a "preview" sketch challenge on Friday night that you can see here. For once, I followed the sketch almost exactly! I chose an older piece of CM with red tones to match the brick work. Then I accented with yellow to match the other predominant color in the paper. I ended up going back after the challenge and replacing the original sticker letters (much manipulated due to shortages of the required letters) with Cricut cut ones. If anything looks slightly ripped, it's from where the original sticker letters were. But that just matches the antique feeling of the page! 😀

I took the tour with the first group so that I was prepared to help the subsequent groups along. There are a number of time-period correct antiques in the home, though not necessarily from the original family holdings. It's amazing how some parts of the house are still in great shape hundreds of years later, including the floors.

The left page uses an idea I saw to create flames. The story is about a  burning log on the wood floor. The flames are actually red and yellow paper cut with the Creative Memories Border Maker system using the grass cartridge (now discontinued). I also found a piece of paper with a design that sort of reminded me of flames, so I fussy cut 2 of them out to fill the corners. The right page was copied off an idea sheet I have in my stash (I want to say it was a page formula, but I'm not positive). I did get the idea somewhere. I just supplemented with what I had in my stash.

As the rest of the tour groups formed I could jump in and out to take photos inside and outside. Have to love the orderly line of club members waiting on their stamps!

I think I created this on my own, not a sketch or idea sheet, but I honestly can't remember (and I only created it about 18 months ago). I went fairly simple using the pale blue to match everyone's t-shirts and then contrasting with yellow (another favorite color combo). The embellishments are few but helps to create an X on the page for flow. The bear head is a VERY old paper piecing kit that I had. I just like the way he's peeking over the paper.

Centennial Part 2--Boat House Row

This post marks my 100th post! (Now that includes a couple of recipes and my intent to change directions, but still, not a bad start!)

This week I focus on the photos I took during a photography class. My first evening in Philly I joined a tour to learn how best to use my camera. I turned out to be the only participant! So the guide and I walked through the Boat House Row area as well as the hills surrounding the area and he taught me settings, composition, and lighting considerations. If you have an interest in scrapbooking, improving your camera skills may improve your pages. I think it has improved mine!

The 5 layouts in this post are ALL fast-to-fabulous pages. On the left page above, the F2F page is covered with wallpaper. If you remember last week's post, the front of that page is the Traveler series and the back just didn't mesh with what I was working on here. I used pieces from the Tangerine, Plum and Then Some line (discontinued) and matching elements from the Vintage paper pack (also discontinued) which matched very closely. Because the pages are pre-decorated, they were done in minutes. Note that on the right page above, I put 2 photos in the horizontal box and used the other for journaling. You don't HAVE to use the page in any particular way. Don't feel constrained.

In the photos above we had walked up the hill to Lemon House and as we walked back down the Museum of Art came into view. I didn't really like the skyline photos he had me shoot but I'm glad the museum was included. You can see this is a sunset walk and that became important for learning how the gold light in the afternoon could be used to highlight elements of the photos.

As above, I used one of the photo boxes for a journal box. Because I still had room, I added a die cut of a camera (above as well but 2 very different vintages of die cuts). As nice as F2F pages are, sometimes it's nice to add a little embellishment. In fact, if I ever re-visit these pages I may add a border across the top of the pages for more visual interest.


What I like about the layout below is that I got to show how the class improved my photos. Because I used a digital camera the guide would let me take a photo and then show me how to stand or change settings and improve it. It's all about what I wanted to shoot. A good example are the waterfall photos below. Left was what I shot. Right was the improvements.

The orange tones worked well with the setting sun photos . And as it got darker, the plums matched the deepening shadows as well. It's good to keep an open mind. I had these pages pegged for heritage photos (like touring old homes) in my head.

Because we are near the water, we got to play a bit with reflection as well. With luck, several rowing teams were practicing and I was able to get them in the photo to provide depth.

The journal boxes above are tags from the Vintage collection. There wasn't much to journal so it was nice to have a small area to fill.

The last pages again show the range of options I found on my camera. To honor this, I found 2 borders that talked about camera settings and added them to the bottom. The colors were a decent match for the pages even though they came from a different line.

Centennial part 1--A Whole Week in Philly!

I will be taking a short break from my chronological album as I have photographed and posted everything I've finished. So to buy some time I decided to present the album I created for the 2016 NPS Centennial Convention. This was held in Philadelphia and surrounding areas and we spent a week there so that our end date was the actual centennial.

 This page was scraplifted from this pin. what amazed me most was that I actually owned several of the stickers that are on the original. That almost NEVER happens! 😀 This was not very difficult to put together. The large letters on top are from an old Creative Memories pack of Large Monogram stickers. Not made currently but great for titles like this. The buckles were rather simple and you can use this technique for suitcases or Santa belts. You make the under strap first at whatever width you like. Then make a square of gold slightly larger than the strip. For example, if you made a 1 1/2" belt you will want approximately 1 3/4" buckle. Next make a square in the same size as the belt and layer on top of the gold square. This is what makes it look like a woven strap. If you feel especially artistic you can draw in a prong for more realism.

The luggage itself is a rounded rectangle. The handle is made by cutting out an appropriate sized circle and tucking it under the case.

The first page is of course the itinerary. This time I listed all of the activities one could attend, not just the ones that are in the album. I highlighted the centennial in red and then added a few Philadelphia stickers to finish the page.

On the right is an 8 1/2 x 11 portrait sleeve. The real reason this is here is that as I was working on the album I realized that I hadn't made a space for the unigrid and I really wanted to include it. I also needed more room on my visit to the US Mint which is the layout below. To fill out the rest of the page I added Washi tape to the top and bottom for a simple border and then added a die cut of the Liberty Bell that I've had in my stash for a while.

So the first thing I did upon arriving in Philadelphia was visit the Mint. I know it isn't an NPS site, but the page ended up including some random walks through the city and the Ben Franklin Memorial, which IS part of the NPS as an Affiliated Site. I also grabbed a shot of Independence Hall as I walked by. Another photo is of the Penns Landing bridge which is near where I parked.

As I said, the left page is the portrait sleeve and ended up being a great place to store my tour brochure from the Mint as well as a postcard. The brochure is mounted with paper photo corners. I thought the red helped set it off a little bit. The right page is part of a Fast to Fabulous set which was called Uncharted. It's a little bit of vintage and travel combined. The page has a built-in border and then a small print. All I had to do was mat the photos. There are 2 more stickers from the Philadelphia pack and their borders match the photo matting somewhat. All I needed was a journal box and it was done!

Oklahoma Memorial at Night

In October 2012, I traveled to Oklahoma for a conference. The Health Professions Network not only discusses pertinent health care worker information but takes time to explore the city. This visit turned out to be very poignant as the leader of the group was a friend of one of the victims of the Oklahoma City Federal Building bombing. They chose an evening visit to the site which is when the memorial chairs are lit. It was beautiful but sad. The memorial was once an official unit of the NPS, but it has been since moved to private hands and is only an affiliated site. (For the NPTC folks, there IS a stamp).

This is a wallpaper page using a sheet from the Creative Memories Brave paper pack. These pages were also submitted as part of the Summer Page Challenge. This paper pack was just introduced at the beginning of July (though I expect it to be sold out soon). Since it had a nice set of stripes already, I just matted and mounted the photos and the site's brochure.

Once inside the site, they said a few words about their friend and laid a rose on her chair. Because we saw the site at night, it was hard to get good photos. I just have a couple that worked and then I returned another day and bought postcards. As they are also from the nighttime view, it looks like they are my photos!

This layout is part of a 1-2-3 layout (but I can't link to it as it is part of a published book which must be purchased). The paper is also from the Brave pack. There are 2 long strips of one side of the paper and then the remaining piece is cut diagonally and layered across the 2 pages (reverse side showing). I added some old rose stickers to match the one placed on the chair. I found a journal box on the right side page which had a floral design. However, when I turned it sideways it sort of reminded me of the way the lighted chairs were reflected in the pool (shot from the other side of the site). I'm glad I got to see this memorial with the group as it really heightened my experience.

TIMBER!

After another night in Oshkosh, I was on the road again, this time with no timeline to hold to. I made a random stop at a Jelly Belly tour, and then as I drove through Ohio, I planned to visit the Fallen Timbers Monument. I had attempted a visit on my way out, but timing was off and I couldn't get the stamps. So, this time I went to the library in Maumee, OH, got the stamps and then used the maps provided to find the monument. This is not a full NPS unit yet, but there is land set aside and some monuments to the battles.

The left is a wallpaper page. Not overly detailed, but I amused myself by using "Timber" paper as the background. The right may seem a little short to you. It is actually one of the 8 1/2 x 11 Portrait Sleeves from the original Creative Memories Line. You'll remember that I used these on the cruise to hold the daily newsletters from the cruise line. Each page comes with a piece of cardstock inside, but I wanted to stick with the brown tones, so I substituted a piece of brown/tan from the Eastern National scrapbook collection. I trimmed one of the maps to highlight the area where I visited and to fit the paper. This was the most difficult decision to make as I couldn't figure out how to appropriately display the map to its best advantage.

The last page of this layout is then the back side of the Pocket Page. Remember I said the paper was 2-toned? The back is this nice shade of tan. This allowed me to use brown stickers from the Eastern National scrapbook kit to highlight the page. It's a cute story if you can read the plaque. I don't often include photos of the plaques, I just take them to remind me of the story so I can journal. But in this case I thought it would make the most sense to post the entire piece.

Northwest Adventure part 13--Chinatown

Happy New Year!
After our return from Bainbridge, we headed in the direction of our afternoon tour--the Wing Luke museum. This is in the Chinatown area of the city and we located a restaurant. Our lunch was one price and included appetizers, entrees, soup and drinks for $10 each! Jim and I really enjoyed lunch there! We walked back to the Wing Luke museum for our guided tour. This museum commemorates the lives of those who came from all over Asia to make a new life in America.

As I worked on the layout above, I started with the right page (I do that quite a bit actually). The borders were from the Asian Miyabi paper again with one border cut to fill in the blank horizontal spaces around the page. Then looking at the left I wanted the same colors, so I used scraps from other pages to set off the title and highlight the photos a bit.

Our tour included an Asian apothecary shop which has some of the original items preserved in their original jars (EW!). From there we walked through a series of rooms that housed individuals and families in boarding room type areas.

The title on the left page is actually from a photo I took. It was the only thing of consequence in the photo so I trimmed it and mounted it on a scrap of paper. A similar scrap on the bottom with a design line from the Asian Miyabi set helped finish the page. The journal box has 3 circles cut from other green paper and those are stickers of sushi in the circles. I thought the food appropriate for the shop as it sort of was a grocery as well as apothecary. The page on the right is based on this sketch (See sketch here). It' a very literal interpretation though the stickers were again the chopped sections of design lines.

We continued through the building and I was fascinated by the kitchen area which had a projection of cooking food in the wok. Every facet of life is represented from work to play and even military service.

The left page is wall paper. I love paper that looks like wood. I often think of it more for beach photos but to me it looked much like the floor. On the right is a plain piece of paper with a border remnant at the top. Green and red were used throughout the layouts and helped to give them a sense of similarity. Also on these 2 layouts I used a hexagon punch to be the base of stickers and to help set them off from the backgrounds.

This day isn't over yet! Come back next week for the next installment!

Northwest Adventure part 12--Bainbridge Island

OK, back to something related to the National Parks! On Friday 7/18, we joined a group of NPTC folks for a tour of a new installation on Bainbridge Island. There are a couple of ways to get there, but we chose the ferry from Seattle to Bainbridge.

The pages above are Fast-to-Fabulous and again, are almost opposites of each other. I think they go together quite well and all I had to do was add some journaling and label the coastlines. These pages were done in about 10 minutes!

Once we got on the island we drove to the memorial. It is an affiliated site of the Minidoka National Historic Site which remembers the Japanese-American Internment during WWII. We had a local guide who described the building of the memorial as well as the lives of the people memorialized there.

It's hard to believe that something so sweet would work on such a sad remembrance, but I actually really like how this layout came together. The papers are part of the Creative memories "Fabulous" power palette. The backgrounds are actually "wallpaper" but with enough space at the top and bottom to be able to add a border. The paper lanterns are made using the Creative Memories tag punch. You can find directions here: lanterns. I had the journal box from a scrapbooking yard sale so I'm not sure where it came from, but they look like cherry blossoms to me and so I thought it would match the pages.

As we walked through the memorial we saw the beautiful carved plaques that reflected the lives of the people before, during and after internment. If you get to the area, I highly recommend visiting.

I took my cue from the school girls on the bottom. I used the Creative Memories Asian Miyabi paper and stickers. There are ideas on the back of the paper and sticker inserts and I modified one for this layout. I thought the backpacks looked like they would be used to go to school. I used the contrast of red and green but it doesn't even remotely look like Christmas.

After we finished the tour we drove to the Historical Society which is where the stamp is located. We took a few minutes to look through the outside displays but needed to catch the ferry back to Seattle.

Because the themes of the 2 layouts were different but connected, I used a double border on the left page to box that page in so that it looked separate. I also ensured the backgrounds were different colors so that there was a contrast--your eye isn't looking to continue the story on the right. The left page borders use some older Creative Memories short cuts called "rick rack". I layered stickers from the Asian Miyabi pack over top so it was almost a vine. The 2 fans at the top filled in a little dead space. On the right is one of the pre-designed picfolio inserts. The vertical line helped set off the brochure.

Well, that ends my first year of the blog for National Park Scrapbooks! I hope you enjoyed it as much as I have and will come back next year for more!

Northwest Adventure part 8--end of the cruise

Our last shore stop was in Ketchikan. Ironically, Ketchikan is the rainiest spot in Alaska but the weather was beautiful for us.

On the left page is a border I made with Creative Memories paper and stickers. It's busy, but I like the combination. Also on the left is a punch art sun made with the Creative Memories paisley punch. I put 5 of them together for the rays, and then punched a circle for the sun in the middle. I really wanted to highlight the good weather! I think I might have needed a 6th ray because it also looks a bit like a starfish. Yellow matting for the photo helps tie the page together. On the right is a Fast to Fabulous page. With cropping and layering of the photos I was able to piece together the multiple sides of the statue in the round.

Also in the area just off the ship was the "liquid Sunshine" gauge. This includes snow as well as rain and last year they had over 100".  We walked through the city, but one of my planned stops was the Southeast Alaska Discovery Center. This is another part of the Tongass National forest so I got more bonus stamps. There were some good displays to view as well.

I kept these pages very plain. There is a background wall paper for both which was a little darker than the traditional pages. I again added a sticker of the sun and the photography sign. Really, the page is all about the photos and journaling. Well, not every page has to be a masterpiece.

Our plan for the day was just to walk around the town and our next stop was the Creek Street area which was the business district (and in those days was the red light district). I loved that everyone was fishing from the bridge. I'm not sure how the lines don't get crossed. The right page features photos of a salmon statue and though it's a replacement, it's really quite lovely.

On the left page I used more of the paper from my Scrapbooking Page a Day calendar. It's funny that when I originally went through the slips I thought "When am I going to use the fishing pages?" And then you come across people fishing and it just works! So the bottom right mat with the fish corners is a page from the calendar. In the space under the photo were a couple of clip art photos--one of which I used on the bottom left. The title is a simple strip of blue cardstock with a decorative circle in the middle and a second layer of creels and bobs to highlight the fishing theme. The journal box is a piece of journal paper with a couple of stickers across the bottom.

On the right I used a piece of Creative Memories' Enchanted paper. The blue diamond paper really reminded me of the scales on the statue and I thought it a perfect match. I apparently had used a portion of that page before so the gap at the top is filled with another frame from the calendar and a green journal  box. 

We saw quite a lot when walking around town and I wanted to capture all the various pieces of the trip. Look at the staircase on the right page--would you like to climb up and down that every day to get home!?! Sometimes we saw wildlife, sometimes we saw strange shops like the whale popcorn place. It made it a little difficult to put it all together cohesively but I think this worked.

These 2 pages are also from the pre-designed picfolio pack and again, I'm using them as they are meant to be! Since the left page ended up being about totem poles, I added the sticker from an Alaskan Scrapbook kit I picked up. The eagle sticker on the right is similar to all the bear stickers. We hung out in various locations (like near a fishing boat launch) to try to get photos of bears and eagles and got NOTHING. Still, for us the day spent doing nothing was quite something!

Below are the layouts for the end of the cruise. There was still a days worth of travel before reaching Vancouver and the ship held some contests as a sort of boat carnival. We ended with a grand dinner and then transitioned back to our land portion of the trip. 

On the left is another cruise page I bought. i added the circle for "Fun at Sea" and that's all the page required. On the right I made a wave border with the Creative Memories border maker system to carry the water theme from the left across the layout. The journal box was actually part of the set made with the border seen in the post at the beginning of the trip with the champagne fountain. The top border is from one of the cruise pages. On the back of that border is the bar code so that when checking out the store can scan it easily. Some companies are thoughtfully printing a contrasting or border design on the other side so it isn't wasted. I used one here with a small sticker as a combination title and decoration.

This is the last page of the album. I always have problems figuring out how to end an album, especially a theme album. Some people make decorative pages much like my kick off page. This time, the club had a group photo taken and I chose the 8x10 photo as my ending page. 

This is one more of the picfolio pre-designed pages and it seems made to highlight a large photo. The title stickers had to be blended though I tried my darndest to get all one shade. Still it is all the same font and I didn't have to manufacture letters. Now it's time to get to the land tour. We took a bus from Vancouver back to Washington state and our adventure keeps going!

Northwest Adventure part 6--Mendenhall Glacier

Our next stop on the cruise was Juneau. The closest thing to a National Park here is the Mendenhall Glacier which is part of the Tongass National Forest. This is a huge area comprising just about all of the southern parts of the Alaskan tail. In National Park Traveler Club terms, the location is a "bonus" stamp location, but I put it on our things to do for the day.

In the layout above, the left page is wall paper, though I added the Juneau title (which is again a combination of stickers to spell out the word--not too shabby this time). I liked the totem pole on the left and thought that it matched my impression of the town. The right page is another of the pre-made pages from the picfolio travel bundle. I chose it to match the browns on the left. The journal box should probably have been a different shade as it gets lost on the page, but there is enough color on the photos to make them pop.

Once at the visitor center, we took a nature trail because there was the possibility of seeing bears. I think it is something Jim really wants to see given our disappointment on the Appalachian Trail, but sadly the warnings were wrong and we didn't see anything.

Both of the backgrounds are from the picfolio kit. And I think for the first time I actually used the pages as intended--matched and facing each other. The wristband is in a handmade protection envelope. I didn't have anything in the correct size so I used one of Creative Memories photo sleeves and trimmed it to the right size and shape. The adhesive is cleverly hidden behind the wristband, but you can always include a background piece of paper if you need additional disguises.

Once at the glacier, I came across a group of NPTC folks walking toward me and grabbed one of my favorite shots ever. It's very "Reservoir Dog" in a good way. 

The left page above is a piece of paper from an old kit by Creative Memories and was made when their pages were not quite true 12x12. I believe they were 12x11.5 or something similar. Because of that I tend to need 2 pages and add a small strip of matching paper to one side to fill in the page. This set is actually 2 remnants stitched together. I liked the natural border they inserted. By adding a piece of vellum, it softens the background a bit and helps the title stand out a bit more. When putting vellum on a page, make sure your adhesive will disappear behind it. Most companies make something specifically for vellum so that it doesn't detract from the page. You can also use decorative stickers at the corners to adhere a block.

The right hand page is a Fast-to-Fabulous page. Notice I was able to trim my photos a bit and put more than just 2 on the page. When looking at a photo, eliminate random body parts of people from the edges and massive amounts of sky or sand and you'll find that trimming often improves the photo. 

Our visit to the glacier ended at the visitor center (which is sort of backwards from my normal pattern). I thought the photo of the building quite nice. Of course if there is a display that says "touch me" I'm going to do so! Getting to touch glacier ice was a big treat, especially being able to do it indoors where it is a bit warmer and a LOT drier.

This is another picfolio pre-designed page. I augmented it with the pre-designed journal card made for a winter theme given the glacier ice in the photo. I matted the building photo to make it pop a bit. I've noticed with the picfolio pages I don't feel the need to put a lot of stickers on as the pattern fills any "dead space".

Oh the things I will do for a stamp.....

The next set of layouts is from a day spent in Greeley, CO. It was March and I was in Denver for the AORN national convention. I arrived a day early to do some stamp gathering and decided to take a Greyhound bus to Greeley to pick up a Cache la Poudre River National Heritage Area Stamp. Again an affiliated site, but I had few options without a car. My first stop in town was at the museum where the stamp is kept and I walked through all the exhibits.

The opening layout focuses on one of the museum exhibits--a dress made from snake skins. I looked high and low to find a piece of paper that would look something like snake and that became the background. I also had to hunt for snake stickers which surprised me, but I was ultimately successful again. I built the title bar from a piece of contrasting paper so the green snake would not get lost in the details. The right page is more about the city, and I tore a piece of green paper to simulate a grassy slope then accented the upper photos with green mats.

I ended up spending all day in Greeley and walked literally across town. If you look at a Google Map, look for the mall and Meeker House. I walked at least 3 miles. I wish I had been wearing a pedometer. Luckily I could get a bus from the mall back to town.

My second stop of the day is the Meeker house below which is the home of the city's founder. I could not go in but did walk along the grounds. My day lasted a little extra long as the bus to return me to Denver at the end of the day was running late and I spent a few chilly hours waiting outside as there is no proper bus station in town. But, I did end up back in Denver that evening and made it to the conference the next day.

This layout is also wallpaper, and like the snakeskin paper--purposeful. I found the paper in a scrapbook store north of Pittsburgh and knew immediately it would tell the story of walking through town and seeing this historic home. I had to do a little photo adjusting to use only vertical photos but it seemed like my photos knew this ahead of time. I'm quite pleased with how these pages turned out.

Once again to Philadelphia

We've arrived at my pages for spring 2009 and even though I feel like I just posted about Philadelphia, it's time for the trip to the city with my students again. This time after we finished the museum and I ate lunch at City Tavern, I walked further south to Gloria Dei Church, also called Old Swede's church. Like the Franklin Memorial, this isn't one of the NPS units--it's an affiliated unit and run in conjunction with Independence National Historical Park. However, since it's the only pictures I took of this visit, I include it here.

This structure is one of the earliest churches built in America and it is still in use. I did take the photos on the outside of the structure and the one of the organ. The view of the main seating area is actually a card I bought while on site.  It's a self-guided tour and I recommend looking through the old graveyard next to the church.

I love the colors I chose on this layout. I don't know that I really matched them to anything in the photos but it just flows. I used 2 sheets of paper and tore them with a wavy tearing tool at about 6 inches. Then I reversed one set of pages and made the 2 complimentary backgrounds. Just enough room for journaling and I didn't really need any more embellishments.

Happy Birthday Ben

Well, it's another trip to Philadelphia and I believe that I must by now have discovered the National Park Travelers Club and its wonderful Master List because otherwise I don't think I would have known that there was a stamp at the Franklin Institute. To be honest this only marginally qualifies for the blog because the Ben Franklin National Memorial is an affiliated site and not one of the "proper" National Park units.

During this visit, the Franklin Institute was hosting a presentation of Body Worlds and so Jim joined me and the surgical technology students on our annual journey to see the exhibit. This is as close to a national park as I will get on this trip. 

This is yet another example of "wallpaper" technique. But not a very good one. The print is just too busy for the photos. The matting on the left page actually does help. However, I didn't think I could mat the photos on the right without losing the essence of the photos. Maybe if I had put all three in a row across the middle it would help. I probably decided that the busy paper would REALLY overwhelm the photos then. Or I would consider it dead space even if there is a print. 

These days I would use portions of a paper this busy instead of the entire sheet. Border strips, small squares, or even banners and tags would break up the design to something more pleasing to the eye.