And the Winner Is...

Today, the blog continues its look at the 2021 NPTC convention. You'll remember that I posted my Saturday morning adventure as one of the Lasting Memories challenge posts back on September 7th. I stopped in Chinatown for a quick bite and then attended the convention meeting. Our meetings always feature a welcome from the superintendent and a speaker about one of the park units. Recognize the ranger on the right-hand page? He was one of the featured speakers at the Frederick Douglass bus trip event. And not only did he speak today, but we awarded him with the NPTC Flat Hat Award. This is the first time we have been able to present the Award at the convention. Usually, we hold a ceremony later in the year at the ranger's host park.

The Award is given each year by asking our members to nominate a ranger who has made an extra effort to ensure the satisfaction of our guests, or who has provided an outstanding presentation. The club has a committee to review the nominations, and then one (or one group) is chosen and announced at the convention. You can see the list of prior winners here. You may be lucky enough to see them in your own NPS travels!

The other awards being given out are to the members who completed their platinum status within the past year. You can see Jennifer Baxter, Cheryl, and Mike Carver (remember their last park, Eisenhower, which was featured at the start of this convention tale). There is also a large photo of all the current platinum members present at the meeting.

This layout is loosely based on Cheryl Even's Sketch #51. This is an excellent sketch if you have a lot of horizontal photos. So long as you get everything to 4" tall, you can arrange the pictures in 2 rows along the page, leaving some gaps for the background paper to show through. The argyle paper is a very old CM paper from my stash. I trimmed it to 8x12 to layer the photos. That left 2" above and 2" below for borders and journaling. The 2 borders below the pictures are laser-cut borders from the US of Yay pack. The "border" across the top was just from punching multiple ribbons with one of the CM punches. I had some small red letter and number stickers to spell out the title across the center of the ribbons. A few firework stickers to celebrate the accomplishments, and the page was done!

Welcome-Bienvenido-Benvenuto-Aloha

Technically, THIS is the start of the 2021 NPTC Convention. Everything else I did in the last few posts (Eisenhower, Clara Barton, the Navy Memorial) was all a prelude to the main event. The reception was new this year and provided an opportunity for new members and first-time attendees to meet fellow club members. There were light refreshments, and we were able to pick up our bags with materials for the next few days (such as bus passes, a copy of the Stamp Pad newsletter, and some promotional materials for DC). 

This layout was made for the CM Virtual Crop in June 2025. Scroll to Challenge #1. This sketch was the perfect opportunity to highlight one of the papers from the Washington DC Scenes pack by Creative Memories. When I trimmed the paper to 11", I cut from the top and left sides to ensure the detail was intact. I also chose to NOT turn that lower right corner. It may have worked either way, but I like it better with the image intact. The top 2" is the reverse side of the paper and became the perfect place for a title. Those are the die-cut letters CM introduced a little while ago. These are in white and match the Red, White, and Blue theme perfectly. I found those 2 small star cluster stickers and thought they would accent the turned corners nicely as well.

Below are a few extra photos of my friends and me enjoying the reception.

You have to love Peekaboo pockets! It allowed me to add six photos to this one-page layout! That's an effective use of space!

Training Time

This week, we start the journey to DC for the NPTC 2021 Convention. As I made my preparations for the convention, I realized that most of Washington, DC is walkable, and for the parts that were not, the club would have bus trips. So instead of frustrating myself with I-95 traffic and the cost of parking in the city, I took the train! It was a very comfortable ride down to Union Station. I splurged on an Uber to get my suitcases to the hotel, but I never really missed having a car during the few days I was in the city.

I based this layout on another pin that I saved. I was surprised to find, scrolling through my favorite layouts on Cricut Design Space, that the components for this layout were already created. I didn't cut the large rectangles on the Cricut--I can do that with my 12" trimmer. However, the suitcases, postcards, and stamp frames were all cut using a Cricut. Any items in white that would fade into the background were edged with black ink. The small bit of railroad track on the left is a leftover piece from the CM border punch. The bridge on the right page is a laser-cut border from one of the Creative Memories collections. The train sticker was the perfect size to layer on top. A few other train and ticket stickers from my stash finished the layout. I made a trial run of my itinerary, so I knew I would need two columns to list all the entries. Cutting the journal paper in half helped!

Kicking Off the Album

In this post, we begin a new journey. It's time to highlight the 2021 National Park Travelers' Club Convention, which we'll explore over the next several months. It was held in Washington, DC, and the host parks were Mary McLeod Bethune and Carter G. Woodson National Historic Sites. (Interesting fact--I have not added either of those parks to my park total list as they were not open for touring during our trip and I haven't had a chance to return when they WERE open.)

I based the title page on this pin I had saved. In the original pin, you'll see a plane in the middle circle, but I wanted to switch that up to a train. As you'll see next time, my primary mode of transport to DC was on Amtrak. For the phrase "Let The Vacation Begin", I did some letter manufacturing. I used straight letters (I, K, M, etc.) to create the "T"s and trimmed a "W" for the second A in vacation. But my favorite hack was to use the compass "N" to complete the word "vacation." I knew there was no way I was going to get "Begin" from that same sticker sheet, so I decided to change to a different sheet of stickers. Those letters are all from one sticker sheet, but it features a variety of fonts and colors, making it easy to mix and match. The NPTC lettering is traced from a CM template and colored in with a brown marker. The template has a "school days" feel to it, but the lettering was the right size to fit on the title tag.