Happy Trails part 21--the Ranger Walk

 I chose to take the guided tour of Chamizal on Sunday morning. There were 20 or so of us gathered for the tour and the ranger walked us around the grounds explaining the border markers and the need for this National Memorial park. It was a bit warm, even in the morning, so he tried to keep us in the shade of trees whenever possible.

These pages are pre-designed Creative Memories pages. It pre-dates the Fast-to-Fabulous layouts but is the same sort of design. And for once in my life, my photos actually matched the openings made for the layout! The only edit I had to make was to the ranger photo (which was a horizontal photo but cropped to 4x4 nicely so would fit in a vertical box and allow room to journal below). I added 2 stickers on the right page--one in the ranger's photo box and one in the middle of all 4 boxes. It was such an international site I thought the world globe worked in that space.

Happy Trails part 20--the Convention!

The convention starts with registration. One of the most important tables to stop by is the stamping station. The club creates its own stamp, plus an iconic stamper for the park. We add those to the park's commonly used stamps and the tables get BUSY! I snapped a few folks in their stampmania. It's always interesting to see how everyone does their collecting--some take multiple images on one page, some have multiple books, some want specific impressions. There's no wrong way to stamp though.

This layout was created at a Paper Loft class at a Lancaster scrapbook convention. It had been in my stash a while, and I had to move the banners on the right page because my cat had found the edge delicious (there were tooth marks left in the paper!). I added a few strips of paper (the pine cone strips are leftover from a paper in the Eastern National scrap kit) and some Cricut cuts of the rubber stamp. A couple of stickers from the Junior Ranger sticker pack and a passport sticker (not what we usually use, but it was blue and said passport so I went with it) and the page was complete.

You may think the pages don't quite lie next to each other. I had to take 2 photos and stitch them because between them is a pocket page holding my copy of the program from the day. I grabbed a couple of photos during the convention. One of our speakers was the superintendent and I found a photo of her from outdoors to include. On the right are photos with several club members (including me) with the park's mascot--Chami the Chipmunk.

This layout is from Club Scrap's National Park kit. Scroll down to pages 7 and 8 to see it without photos. I spent a day putting a bunch of these layouts together and was excited to be able to use them. I bought a few sheets of paper from the club as part of a clearance sale. Later, I had scoured the eBay and Facebook group postings and bought some leftover packs of paper as well--enough for me to put together the layouts, cards, and even a few extra pages not included in the original instruction pages. Because my first layouts were made before I realized the cutting guides were on their website, I had to make a few edits to which embellishments were placed on each page. But, they work for me! Especially the quote about laughing).

The final pages of the convention take us from the break (and the fabulous cake the club was able to get) through the President's dinner and a quick shot of one of our members who joined us at a Karaoke bar after dinner. The group photos were taken by multiple people so I'm sort of standing to the side instead of in front of the group. (Also why you won't find me in the photos!) 

The final pages are another pre-designed layout. This set was completed at a local scrapbook store. When I lived near Harrisburg I would drive to the store once a month to complete a layout. I have to admit I never knew what I was going to use this one for. "Sippin on Sunshine" and lemons didn't seem to apply to any of my usual summer photos. But I decided that I would pull it for the break/dinner photos and it doesn't "wow" me, but the pages are completed. And the lesson of this set of posts is that it is GREAT to take time to put page layouts together in anticipation of using them. But at some point, please remember to take them out and put photos on them! 

Happy Trails part 19--We finally come to Chamizal

 It's been a while since I started the album, but we are FINALLY getting to the actual convention! After my visit to San Elizario, I drove back to El Paso and the Chamizal visitor center. The mural has been recently updated and I took some time getting photos outside.

This layout is one of the 1-2-3 sketches I love. You can see the directions here. It's not as complicated as it looks. There are circular cuts made on one sheet of 12x12 paper, and you use the curved parts for one page and the remaining paper on the other so you have sort of a negative image of the other side. The plain cardstock behind helps to prevent the layout from becoming too busy. I didn't add any embellishments to the page in another attempt to keep it balanced.

Inside the building, I looked through the museum (which is slated for renovation soon so I'll have to go back) and got situated in their spacious auditorium.

This is another 1-2-3 sketch, one that I saved from a summer class in 2018. It's available here. I had, of course, pulled all of my yellow, red, and orange papers for my southwest trip so this was in the pile. I'm sure it is Creative Memories, I just don't recall which paper pack it is. Still, the point is to have a contrast in the middle to use as accent squares and then arrange photos and journaling around the edges. I used a handful of orange mats from my stash as well to fill in the blocks around the photos and the "Find Your Park" sticker. 

The rest of the embellishments are a bit of a jumble but I think they pull together nicely. On the left page are a compass rose (provenance unknown) and a vellum title strip. (Vellum is tricky because adhesive typically shows through. Try the CM vellum adhesive and when you burnish the top of the vellum, the adhesive disappears.) The postcard is an old sticker from CM's travel pack. The buffalo (mirroring the statue) is from a junior ranger pack I received as a gift. On the right are fewer embellishments. I wanted to use the 2 old CM stickers but because the mat was so busy, I mounted them on a piece of yellow cardstock so they didn't get lost on the page.

Happy Trails Part 1--NPTC Convention 2015 Album kick-offs

This album was made chronologically--a first for me I think! Most of my large trip albums are completed soon after I arrive home. That's because I like to have them completed for the next convention. When I'm in driving range, I bring my scrapbook albums with me to share. If you've not been to one of the NPTC Conventions, it's a weekend of excitement and friendship. Our next one is in July/August 2021 in Washington DC. Join us! I'll be bringing quite a few completed albums with me.

For this convention, we traveled to El Paso, Texas to visit Chamizal National Memorial. You'll get to see that park, but it will be a while! Here I'm showing off the album kick-off page and the itinerary page.I had to come up with a title for this trip. Jim had not given me one before I left. Perhaps because this was to be a short weekend getaway. But I packed a LOT into it as you'll see in the coming weeks.

My inspiration for the title page came from this Pinterest post. What I got from that was the overall color scheme and the travel shapes. I transitioned that to a Fast to Fabulous page that had a great deal of open space but with a good brown tone print. I added some stickers to the bottom and upper right corner and then cut the title on the Cricut. This is 3 layers of color together and the black is cut strategically to show the yellow and orange papers through. I'm not completely sure I did it all correctly (cutting and layering) but decided to keep the title and not cut a new one. 

My itinerary shows that this was a quick trip--Friday through Monday. But look at how many events per day.

This page was inspired by this layout. At one time I did have a journal box/mat like the inspiration page. However, I must have used it because it wasn't in my stash that I could see. So I used the CM Custom Cutting System rectangles to cut the red cardstock and map paper for the base of the die-cut. The car and driver were both cuts on the Cricut, as was the Texas shape title box. I put long border stickers with a western theme on the left and right pages. I guess I thought that my itinerary would not take much space. But then I started journaling at the top and just barely got it all on the page!