I guess it was a visit...

Jim and I often had date night by taking a trip to a dinner theater, so this trip was focused on attending the Lazy Susan Dinner Theater. I did some research to find a National Park nearby so I could get a stamp and decided on Manassas. We went to the visitor center and saw the maps then bought a tape of the auto tour to listen to as we drove around the battlefield. Unfortunately the map in the unigrid did not match the auto tour numbers and the map that should have been given to us with the tape was missing. We got frustrated pretty quickly because a lot of the drive is on local roads and there was quite a bit of traffic. We felt unsafe making stops in what clearly was not a standard stop. We drove back to the gift shop to demand our money back, skipped the battlefield and headed over to Arlington Cemetery where we walked up to the Marine Corps Memorial. I did save the entrance tickets from Manassas for scrapping and so that is as close to a National Park as I could get for this layout.

This page is another example of wallpaper technique. It's a little hard to make out but this is a pattern paper with cars on it to represent our car ride. Patterned paper can be very useful in setting a tone for a page.

Although the Manassas tickets are red, they accent the page well because red and green are complimentary colors (there's a reason they look good at Christmas time too!) If you haven't picked one up for scrapbooking, investing in a simple color wheel helps find colors to use together. You can take a single color in a variety of tones (monochromatic), two colors opposite each other (complimentary), or three colors evenly spaced around the spectrum (triad). If you try something new, drop me a line below and tell me about it!

Journaling is always important to scrapbooking because it helps tell the story of the pictures. I generally feel like I over journal but given the limited amount I shared above I think shortchanged the reader. I guess I didn't want to sound too harsh to the park in something that will outlive me. What do you think, should I add more detail to the journaling on the page?

Back to Petersburg

My early trips show a very limited exposure to the various parks in the system don't they? Well, at this point even though I had purchased the passport book I hadn't yet found the National Park Travelers Club (NPTC). So this visit is a return to Petersburg. That isn't too surprising because I mentioned our previous visit was for Jim to get ideas for a book. This time the book is in full production and he arranged to spend time in the archives as well as tour the battlefield and Crater sites.

Very little technique on these pages, but I've tried to add some ivy as a nod to the heritage/historical aspects of the place. Not sure the "Remember When" sticker is enough of a title and there is plenty of space to put one on the left upper corner. The journal mat is an odd choice. Perhaps I didn't notice the swirls in the background as I journaled.

The photo mats show some promise as I purposely arranged them to get the most of the NPS arrowhead paper around the edge. The kit is available at many gift shops and online at the Eastern National store. Unfortunately it includes 8 1/2 x 11 paper, not 12x12.

So this is the first lesson in what to do with non-12x12 paper--use it for photo mats!

The First Layout with a Unigrid

My next recorded visit is a double page about Fort Sumter. Jim and I traveled to Charleston, SC for a conference and took a bit of time to site see before returning home. This is one of the places I distinctly remember picking up the little blue passport book, and putting it down again without buying it.

What is this "Unigrid" I mention in the title? It's the brochure on the bottom right page. When opened there is information on the park and often a map of the unit.

There are not a lot of photos in this layout, but the key ones are there: 1) photos of us with the sign, and 2) cannons. I used more of a "patriotic" feel with this layout as Civil War materials are hard to come by. The borders are part of a tablet of borders that I bought and have a red background with white stars. The 2 photo mats I chose are from a calendar that my sister-in-law gave me for Christmas. Each day was a mat and many of them have additional art in the middle under the photo.

I probably could have matted the photo of Jim since it's the only thing not touching paper. I'm not crazy about the sleeve for the unigrid--it's open on both ends so I think it could easily fall out. Unfortunately my favorite storage for those have been discontinued and I'm afraid if I take the photo sleeve off the page I'll end up with damage.

The First Double Double

My next set of National Park layouts is this pair of pairs from Petersburg. Jim and I were at the end of a very long drive back from Atlanta where we stopped at a variety of military museums. This was mostly a "Jim" trip, but don't worry I get back at him later. 😁

I wonder where I got that Civil War paper. This is something that I'm going to struggle with a LOT as there are many Civil War era national park units and a shortage of papers and stickers for that theme.

So obviously the left page is "wallpaper" technique. The right side is a bit bare. I should have matted some of the photos I think. Or perhaps used a split page for that one piece of Civil War themed paper.

Here is the 2nd set of layout pages. What is a bit unusual is that the "Title" ends up on the 2nd of the 2 layouts. I think that is because this was the real focus of our visit. Jim is planning to write about the Crater and this will provide some background for his book.

I rather like the alternating square border on the right and that I seem to have coordinated colors a bit better, pulling the red/brown from the left photo and using that to mat photos and choose the squares.  In this phase of my scrapbooking history I'm using the "natural" colored pages from Creative Memories and it does seem to deaden the title letters. Perhaps I should outline them with a dark marker.

A couple of "firsts"

I have researched my scrapbooks and my first page of a National Park visit is this 2-page layout to Gettysburg in 1988. My Uncle Larry and his family came to visit from Texas, and we took a family trip. This is not my first ever visit to a national park--I know that my family took a trip to DC in 1976, but I don't seem to have any photos of that trip.

What I like about this layout is the fence I created out of paper strips. I also like the ivy letters (and I think I still have a few to use). I do wish that I had been better at placing the letters in a straight line though. Like many layouts from this era (and I'm guessing I created this around 2000-2002) there is a lot of white on the page. I think I could have put a little more paper behind the photos. But overall the composition is pleasing.

A couple of pages later, I found this layout from a trip to DC (which I am including here in order to tie in my first visit to any national park). My brother and I went specifically to see something at the art museum though I don't remember what. We also walked over to see the Vietnam Veterans Memorial and I remember buying a poster of the wall. We parked outside the city and rode the Red Line from Shady Grove. I still remember the sound of the conductor reciting "This is the Red Line to Shady Grove" on the way back to the car. I wish I could record that sound here--probably the one drawback to scrapbooking.

The technique I used here is called "Between the Lines". I created a double border with design lines top and bottom and then filled the middle with small decorative stickers. The title sticker worked well for this technique and then I matched the stars and stripes along the bottom. This may be the first use of the footprint path, but definitely will not be the last.

Overall I like this page though again I think I could have used more paper under the photos.

So that's my first entry. Stay tuned to see how my scrapbooking progresses!