Happy Trails part 7--On the Wagon

The museum moved into more recent history and featured a display of chuckwagon cooking. I used to watch competitions on TV among historic chuckwagons, so this caught my interest. 

This paper pack is S'mores and it worked perfectly to generate the rustic feel. I especially like the starry night paper as a background. I followed the sketch for the CM virtual crop again. The idea behind this layout was to create a border across the top. I did that by layering 3 different papers (the gingham, the blue speckle, and a red bandana paper) and then using the campfire punch to balance the edges. I cut the flames in both orange and yellow to create a more realistic flame. The title is from the S'more's theme pack. The wagon and the cowboy boot and hat on the journaling box are from some very old Day at the Ranch stickers from Creative Memories.

Below is a close-up of some of the vintage cookware on display and another old chuck wagon. 

I used a peekaboo pocket to add the last 2 photos without making a 2-page spread. I have a lot of ground to cover in this museum and wanted to save a little space.

Happy Trails Part 6--the historic home

Moving along the museum path, I encountered more murals and dioramas of everyday life. The recreated home was interesting to me, especially as I had to walk through the front door of the house to continue.

This page was created for one of my scrapbook classes. The theme of that month was to use our stash of photo and decorative mats to create a layout. So I chose 3 of my horizontal photos and 3 mats and arranged them to cover the page. The top left mat was my title, the middle one my journal box and the bottom left my embellishments. On that one I added the sun in the middle. It's a 3D die-cut from an older travel pack and came with pop-dots on the bottom.

As I entered the house, I was treated to the unusual hanging cradle and had to get closer to investigate.

This page is wallpaper. I thought the brown/gold tones matched the photos well. The arrow is a little brighter than I would have liked but it matched the title card from the opposite page, so I left it.

Happy Trails part 5--On the Trail of History

The next layout is still at the Farm and Ranch Museum. This is the display that pertains directly to the El Camino Real de Tierra Adentro. This display features ANOTHER cart used on the road--kind of amazing how many were found! To add to the display, the back wall was painted with a mural of everyday life. 

As I mentioned last week, the left page is the backside of a pocket page (the front holding the museum brochure). The layout is based on a sketch for the June 2020 virtual crop for Creative Memories. You can see the blog post here. While many people turned the 3 elements on the sides to small photos, I knew that I had to downsize the layout because of the size of the left page. So I chose to go with stacked circles (chosen because of the background paper). That left the middle for photos (and I never feel like I HAVE to use a vertical where they put a vertical place holder). The edges are a border maker basketweave. I thought based on the activities in the mural that it would be a good match.

Happy Trails Part 4--The Farm Museum

 My next stop for an El Camino Real stamp was the New Mexico Farm and Ranch Heritage Museum. This is a huge place with lots of interesting displays and we'll take the next month to go through it a bit at a time. Even though only one part deals with the El Camino Real, the rest is rather interesting.

The layout is another challenge from the Creative Memories Virtual Crop. You can see the blog post here. I chose a background paper from the Rustic Manor pack which has a photo of a barn door. I was able to keep the image present even though I added photos and other embellishments. One of the elements of the sketch is the set of mats under the photos. I chose a rather neutral color, but to give a little more definition, I punched the edges with one of the CM Border Maker System punches. It's called "Garland" and is one that leaves a stencil rather than cut shapes (as you saw in last week's page). I had a couple of cow stickers and die cuts and used some brown cardstock to set off the rest of the elements. The one thing that looks out of place is the sticker I wore for admission. I preserved that and wanted to add it to the page. Although the color is off, it does belong there.

I added this photo just to show you why this is a one-page layout for such a large museum. I wanted to include the Museum Guide in one of the Pocket Pages. The back of the pocket became the left page for the next layout. You'll see that next week.

Happy Trails Part 3--Crossing the Border

Friday morning, I continued my tour of the El Camino Real de Tierra Adentro. One of my first stops was just across the border of New Mexico at their Welcome Center. I was able to get a photo of the state welcome sign as well as information on the trail.

This layout is based on a sketch from the Creative Memories Virtual Crop. You can see it in this blog post. I used a piece of paper from the new Automobiles paper as well as some matching embellishments. There are really only 2 photos on this page. I liked that I could make everything fit the shapes to create the layout. The two right boxes are filled with paragraphs about the trail cut from a brochure. The bottom left box is a sticker from the collection mounted on 2 sheets of coordinating cardstock. I rounded the edges of the light tan cardstock to match the sticker. The middle bottom then became my journaling box. The top border is a pair of older cartridges from the CM Border Maker System. The bottom is the very early cartridge called Scallop Stitch. On top is the Rainbow punch. Both are doubled and meet in the middle to create one large border. To me, it looked like wheels.

Happy Trails Part 2: the History Museum

 After landing and checking into the hotel, I met up with one of my club friends and we went to the local museum (because there was a stamp there). We wandered through the displays for a little while. It's a nice enough museum but fairly small. The photo on the bottom right was taken digitally through an interactive wall at the front. It's one of the coolest features of the museum.

For the first layout, I thought I was using a sketch from my monthly class. I sort of did, except instead of opening the June layouts I opened January and so this repeats a sketch I had done previously. Still, the beauty of sketches is that they look different from changes to paper and photos. I had used this sketch for Christmas and it looks completely different! I can't show you the sketch because of the class rules. The papers I chose were some of the last remaining bits of the Creative Memories "Brave" pack. I hope they come out with something similar soon!

The stamp at the museum is from the El Camino Real de Tierra Adentro National Historic Trail (an affiliated part of the National Park Service). This translates loosely as the Royal Road. I'll be sharing more about this trail as I collected quite a few stops along the route. The museum had just one display piece connected with the trail--the rustic cart that would have been used to move goods from town to town. That wasn't the only thing we saw though--the museum has a nice eclectic set of antiques from the area.

This layout is a 1-2-3 sketch that you can see here. The paper I chose was one-sided and her sketches are made to get the most out of double-sided prints. So I chose some additional scraps in coordinating colors and used them to fill in for the 2nd side of the print design. The brown photo mats helped fill any gaps and are a nice contrast to the brochure and photos. The border on the far left page is made with the Creative Memories Border Maker System and the gears cartridge.

After the museum, we went to dinner. Our club has a newsletter called the Stamp Pad which had recently begun reader restaurant reviews in or near National Parks. One of them was for our convention area, and so we decided to give it a try! I agree with the review--great food, authentic atmosphere, and good pricing. I'd go back here anytime.

One of my few layouts that aren't inspired by someone else's. I chose to use paper from the "Made With Love" pack from Creative Memories. The paper had both a restaurant feel with the red gingham and the southwest feel with the bandana print in red and black. Just a couple of photo mats brought everything together. I liked the silverware stickers. It gives that photo a "placemat" feel.

50-States Album part 22: Rhode Island

Rhode Island was part of our 2018 National Park Travelers Club convention. While the host park was in Massachusetts, the distance to the other New England states is small enough that we had a bus trip that included several Rhode Island sites and was still back to New Bedford by dinnertime. We saw not only the Roger Williams NM but the state capitol and Tuoro Synagogue--one of the oldest temples in the US.

This layout is based on a blog post from Creative Memories. While the original post was clearly the Golden Gate Bridge, the paper can be used for any suspension bridge. I turned the laser-cut die-cut bridge over so the red wasn't the prominent feature. It helped that we went to Newport as the bridge is a feature of that city. Otherwise, I would have struggled with a theme for the page.
On the upper left is an image of the state I cut on the Cricut. It was a nice change having a striped state and the state flower included. The state name was sort of an accident. The font I chose to cut (also on the Cricut) was very narrow and tore into shreds when I tried to remove it. But looking at the "negative" space I realized with little effort, I could turn THAT into the title!

50-States Album part 19--Oklahoma

I've just had one trip to Oklahoma--my first HPN conference. We visited the memorial during our trip--several people in the group knew one of the victims which made for a very emotional tour. I also went to Chickasaw as well as the State Fair. Luckily I got a selfie with one of the weird characters walking around.

This layout is based on this image. The background paper has a leathery look to it and I found denim, bandana and some red houndstooth to make the layers. I used a tearing tool to get the rough edges. It gives it a  bit of a rustic look. I thought cutting the shape of the state from Denim helped tie the top and bottom of the page. I also like that I just used the state abbreviation instead of writing out Oklahoma.

50-states album Part 16--New York

Some of my favorite trips to New York are shown below. Mom, my sister Sue and I took a bus trip to New York City for a day and we got to go to the Statue of Liberty. This was pre-9-11 and you could just take a ferry over and line up to get inside. Another trip was when Jim and I took a long weekend and drove randomly to the Finger Lakes and then ended up in Niagara Falls.

The basis for this page was this quilt block. I know that's a bit unusual, but you can get inspiration from just about anywhere. I know I've seen challenges where you interpret a magazine ad and transform it into a scrapbook layout. In reality, it isn't much different from following a sketch. What I took from that block was the icons for Niagara Falls, the Statue of Liberty and the state shape. I used a piece of paper that has a watery look to it so the backdrop behind the Cricut cut of the falls would be more realistic.

The top of the page is a  border maker cartridge from Our Memories For Life (OMFL) which was an offshoot of the original Creative Memories. The pattern in that direction echoed the falls to me. The  Statue of Liberty cut came from a Destinations cartridge for the Cricut.

A chamber of horrors?

Not for me! But if you are at all squeamish, perhaps you don't want to see this page. I'll add some extra space to give you time to go away.

















OK, if you made it this far, allow me to present a museum I was eager to see. To my knowledge, it's the only one that focuses on the medicine of the civil war and therefore, was on my bucket list. It does not disappoint if you're into that sort of thing.

This layout is based on a challenge from my monthly scrap class. We were challenged to use up scraps by making squares/diamonds and covering half the page. I doubled the original sketch and used some of my reminisce type papers for the diamonds. I chose one extra to mount the museum admission tag in a memorabilia pocket. The other page remnants are from a Graphic 45 line called Curiosity shoppe. Finally, I found a scrap to mount the title. I used small ABC letters but had to outline the yellow ones to get them to show up on the page. I mounted one brochure that does a nice job of discussing the apothecary wagon. After I was done with this layout and on to the next one, I actually found the museum brochure. Still, it's not detracting from the page with that item missing.

Not So Fun with Flags

My next park trip began in January 2014. I was driving toward Washington DC. This house was listed on the trail map and I assumed (incorrectly) that there was a passport stamp there. But I did find the story interesting and so made a layout about the brief visit.

This layout was created for a scrapbook summer camp I joined online. The camp started at the end of June and our first challenge was to make a patriotic layout and use a sketch. I can't post the sketch here but I did turn it 90-degrees to match the direction of my photos. The papers are from an older CM line called "Americana". I liked the duller/historic look of the paper for this layout. Stickers (border, upper left and the 3 arrows) are from a Reminisce sticker page.

Inside the Gates

Continuing my drive along the Juan Bautista de Anza trail, I went to another presidio--this one in Tucson. This restored building highlights life in the 18th century in the west with reproduction arms, furniture and even brickwork. This is a much smaller area than the original fort because the city has encroached on the historic area.

This layout is another entry in the CM Virtual Crop. I went very literal with the layout, and in hindsight I probably should have used a different shape than the heart for the right side photo. The top border uses an arrow border cartridge from CM. I used the part that is cut out rather than the border itself which is a nice way to get double duty from a cut! Works well for the stars and chevrons too! The papers are much older CM paper but are still in keeping with my southwest tones. The tag used for a journal box is actually from the vintage papers but the orange tone matched the paper. And by turning it so the orange is at the bottom it creates a nice flow down the page.

I enjoyed the trip back in time but also the juxtaposition of the city buildings rising above the fort walls.

For this layout I used a 1-2-3 sketch from Noreen Smith. The striped/orange paper didn't end up the way I thought because the stripes run in 2 different directions so I had to play with the cuts to see which worked best (the inner larger pieces or the smaller corner pieces). the larger won out! Additional embellishments include a journal box that came from a sheet of tags I bought and a photo border of chile peppers from a scrapbooking calendar I got for Christmas many years ago. The sun is from the Everyday Photo Decor kit which is a new collection that provides a gift frame for 3 photos. I had used most of one kit for my Administrative Assistant Day cards and the sun was leftover. I think the variety came together nicely though.

Southwestern Life

The word Presidio means "fort". Tubac is a small town just north of the Tumacacori site. Although this is a state park, it is associated with Juan Bautista de Anza and had a stamp from the trail. I spent a bit of time looking through the museum. There are several buildings to tour.

This layout was another one created for the CM Virtual Crop in April. You can see the sketch here. It was a great way to use up scraps of paper. You can probably recognize the tan and red checked papers from  the Tumacacori page. There are remnants of other papers from my southwest trip as well. I even found a similarly toned journal box. The lesson on color stuck with me from the Tumacacori mortuary chapel layout and I found more of the purple and yellow stickers to layer. The stickers were more transparent than I would have thought, but I think the overall effect is nice.

One of the other buildings on the site is a vintage 1-room school house.

I used one more CM Virtual crop sketch. For this layout I used a very old pack of paper from the original CM called "Cottage". The papers were not quite 12" square so this was a good use of them--using smaller bits to trim a layout. I also had coordinating stickers with a school theme and I think they paired well with the photos. I'm working hard on using up my sticker letters. I added the "School Days" letters to the books sticker as a title. The letters are all the same size, but match the variety of paper colors rather than being monochromatic. I believe I'll be doing this a lot more in the future as I whittle down my stash.

On the Trail of History

My travels in Arizona followed the Juan Bautista de Anza trail. He was a Spanish officer who was charged with leading groups of people from Mexico to establish towns in California. The journeys happened right around the same time that the eastern states were fighting for independence from Great Britain. He successfully led groups all the way to Monterey California.
I made this layout during the Creative Memories virtual crop in April 2019. The sketch can be seen here. The background paper is part of the CM Stone pack. The middle yellow (which I thought matched the sign in the photo well) is an older piece of CM paper. On top is a remnant of white brick also from the CM Stone pack. Since this was a story about settlers traveling I figured they would have taken some livestock with them and found a few horse and sheep stickers to decorate the middle of the page.

Next week I will share pages from the Tubac Presidio (that's where the blue and yellow signs were photographed). I visited a number of sites along the trail and this was sort of the kick-off page for that journey.

One of the other sites I stopped at was this church--Mission San Xavier del Bac. It is actually a notecard I picked up with scenes from the area. It made a good addition to the page but I couldn't make this a 2-page layout and still wanted to include the cover photo and some journaling. Peekaboo pockets to the rescue!

Gorge-ous!

My mother and I had stopped at my cousin's house to visit with family. After we left, I managed to get my mom to agree to some more sight seeing and we drove up to the Columbia River Gorge. This is part of the Lewis and Clark National Historical Trail and we had a great time seeing some of the waterfalls. We didn't see them all because some of the trails were a little too wet or steep and we didn't bring sufficient gear for that.

The left page of the layout actually goes along with the single page below (which ends the album). Periodically Creative Memories distributes incentives for people to join as advisors. As a current advisor I'm allowed to purchase one for my own use or to show to people so that they understand what is available. For this period, it was a special project recipe with papers unavailable in the regular line. I put the kit together and thought that these scenes from nature would be a good fit.

The right page is a new technique I bought. The company is called Photo Dies and they make metal cutting guides that can be arranged into decorative patterns on the page. What excited me about this is that the dies make the cuts for you and so you are ensured of having straight edges. If you've seen some of the trendy templates that make something similar you know that you need to use an exacto knife or fussy cut to get the pieces. I am not really good at that and so when I've tried it I've always been upset with my jagged pieces that don't look neat. This takes care of it for me and I'm really happy with the way it turned out. I made this at the retreat house where the machine is so that I could test it out and I'll be looking for my own machine now and more dies!

The composition of the pages was a little different for me. The Multnomah Falls are actually in the middle of the drive, but as the most elegant and photo-generating, they got their own page. I like that this ends the album as it highlights the visit with my mom.

As I mentioned above, this is the right side of the layout. I did actually turn it 90-degrees though because I had more vertical photos. I think having this as a stand-alone page allowed my brain to think about how to utilize the background. I also could have just used the mats in a different direction as I completed the layout very close to the time that I mounted it in the album, but I like this technique better. It helped that the chevrons now look a little like a waterfall next to the title picture.

The End of the Trail

My next trip was in the fall of 2013 to my cousin's wedding in Portland Oregon. I traveled with my mom and we had some time to go sightseeing between the various events. One morning we headed to Oregon City and found the museum that represents the end of the Oregon Trail. This city is where pioneers would have to register their land claim so all of them had to come through here even if their destination was farther west. This isn't part of a national park, but does have a passport stamp (at least it was supposed to, I only got a bonus stamp).

I started this page using this layout. I found some free cuts for the Cricut and fashioned the cowboy, cowgirl, horse and wagon from various shades of cardstock. The wagon wheels turned out a little thin but I didn't feel like re-cutting them. The layers of desert and mountain were made with 2 shades of brown shaped with a tearing tool similar to this one (though with a bit of a rugged edge instead). You can also use a q-tip lightly dampened with water to create a path to tear paper.

Hallowed Ground

I bought a ticket for a double-decker bus ride that was hop-on hop-off around the city. Being cold, I stuck to the first level! But it was an easy way to get across the river to Arlington Cemetery. Now the cemetery isn't actually part of the NPS, but there IS a park inside its boundaries that I'll show you next week. Since the Eastern National DC scrapbook kit had some die cuts and stickers though, I thought I'd show you what I created.

This layout uses a project recipe from Creative Memories. It was made for a collection called "Cool Serenity" but by switching the paper to the Brave pack, I was able to make the same cuts and use it for the Arlington layout. I had a few random photos of the highlights of the area such as the JFK eternal flame. The sticker set in the EN kit included not only a small image of the structure but also had a title so I cut out the title as well and put it on the layout. The notated die cut was part of the kit as well and just about matched my photo! The stickers in the bottom right corner were part of an older CM sticker sheet that had patriotic and July 4th. I liked the way that the banner and stars resembled the windows of service families in WWII.

I walked up the hill toward Arlington House (next week's topic) and just in front of the house is the grave of Pierre Charles L'Enfant--the man who designed the capitol city. His grave fittingly looks over his creation and you can see from the photos that you can easily see the tidal basin and more! I wanted this layout to do justice to his vision.

This layout is a compilation of multiple scrapbook companies. Let's start with the background. Those are two 8 1/2 x 11 pages from the EN Washington DC kit. When put together at the middle of 12 x 12 album pages it leaves the edges for decoration. The paper is a map of the city as designed (or shortly after Virginia took back its land from DC). To echo the design of the paper, I bought a die cut from Paper Wizard and while I don't see this particular one for sale, they have some great items for national parks. I used some leftover 8 1/2 x 11 patriotic paper to mat the photos and the journal box is sitting on a photo mat from the kit I used to make the Ford's Theatre pages.  I think Pierre would love it!

Centennial Part 16--The Old Barracks

On Wednesday I toured by myself for a bit. I stopped at the New Jersey capitol building, and while they did have a lobby dedicated to the National Park centennial, I chose to not include it in the blog. It is in the album, so if you are particularly interested, stop by to look! After the capitol building I walked around the corner to the Old Barracks. This is part of the Crossroads of the American Revolution trail. This is where the Hessian soldiers were stationed when George Washington made his famous river crossing and attack on Christmas day. I was the only person on my tour, and it took more than an hour to go through all the various rooms.

This is a pair of Fast to Fabulous pages. Once again you can see that I strayed outside of the pre-printed photo boxes. I chose these 2 because of the writing on the background. It reminded me of a letter home. I attempted to piece together photos to show the shape of the compound, but ran out of space on the page, so on the right there are 2 photos combined at the top and the remaining side is below. The title is cut from the Cricut in nice big letters. You can make the letters any size you like, which can be a real bonus to page filling.

Centennial part 13--Rolling Down the River

After the debacle of Great Egg Harbor, I showered and in a much better frame of mind, headed over to our evening cruise of the Maurice (pronounced "Morris") river. Our cruise covered a good portion of the river while our captain narrated. They also provide a "spotter" to see all the eagles and osprey along the route.

This layout is scraplifted from a Close to My Heart layout that I found. Though I didn't have the paper from the CTMH kit, I pulled some matching tones together and I think it fit the layout perfectly! I really had to look around for eagle stickers and even ended up buying a cricut image collection to get the eagle on the left of the second page.

We gathered once again for a group photo as we returned to the dock.

Hopefully you can see the pattern on this paper. It is an ombre effect of green/blue swells across the page. This fit my title perfectly so all I had to do was trim the 8x10 photo to fit the page. I'm liking that I can add large photos of groups so you can see the individuals better. Keep an eye on Shutterfly as they often provide 2 free as an option.

Centennial part 4--Friday night picnic

After touring the Brearley House, we all drove over to Washington Crossing State park. Yep, the Jersey side where Washington and his troops landed for that fateful surprise attack. This state park contains another Crossroads of the American Revolution stamp and we saw the film at the visitor center, picked up the stamp and then gathered for the picnic.

The left page uses a sticker that I'd been holding onto for a LONG time. I mean, when ELSE am I going to use a Washington Crossing the Delaware sticker?!? I mounted that on a piece of blue cardstock that I tore with a rough edge ruler (this double wave tearing tool is very similar to what I used but has more rough edges). To add to the water theme I used a leftover piece from a strip where I cut out a bunch of triangles to make banners. I also had a journal box with water rushing over rocks.

For the right side, I used 1/2 of a layout kit that I made during one of my monthly trips to Enchanted Memories. Most people don't think of splitting up pages, but in this album I actually did that a couple of times. You'll see the left side of the layout in a few weeks. I just didn't want to use the left (hot dog) page with the intro being all about the Washington Crossing.

After we ate, one of the members arranged some group games and everyone had a lot of fun.

This is a layout I created at a Paper Loft class during one of the Lancaster Creating Keepsakes conventions. The classes are great because they focus on highlighting the photos, not the paper. The Fun and Games title was created through some older CM letters. The mixed colors not only worked well with the paper, but brought out the energy of the contests. This is another good example of not worrying about the photo mats already placed on the page. You can see that NOTHING fits within the original (cream) boxes. My favorite use was cropping the long photos so that they fit within 2 of the mats on the right page. Those mats become great journaling boxes. You could even layer stickers in that space. I think the paper on these pages is busy enough that stickers weren't needed though.