Centennial part 9--I Declare!

At the end of the trolley tour it was noted that Declaration House was still open and several of us journeyed down the street to take a tour. This is the home where Jefferson wrote the document and has a few rooms dedicated to how it looked when he lived here.

I don't often do wallpaper with 8 1/2 x 11 paper (in fact I think I've only done it once before during the DC convention), but I thought it would work here. This cardstock is a copy of the Declaration of Independence so I thought it was a great time to use it since I had only a couple of small photos of the house and plaques. This had to be a 1-page layout because the end trolley photo is on the left side. The title at the top is from some letter stickers found in a travel kit. Can you tell I created the second "A" in Declaration from an upside down "u"? I think it works. I really wish I was better at placing square letter stickers in a straight line. I just move too fast sometimes.

Inside we climbed the staircase to view his rooms. The mural on the left below is actually 2 stories tall!  The right photo is an enlargement of his draft with edits all over the place. This is also about 2 stories tall.

I based the left page on this Pinned Image. I then used a F2F page for the right but added some details to make them similar enough for a match. On the left it's an orange base, then 2 slightly smaller squares of coordinating paper. You can see the 3rd square matches the pattern on the right page perfectly. I love the journaling across strips of cardstock. On the right since the paper already matched I just wanted to add a border that mirrored the left page. The blue plaid is from the strip I cut to make the mat on the left. Instead of buttons I chose a plain tab. This would have been a good place for a small title if I needed one but I thought it fine to leave it plain.

Would you believe.....Philadelphia?

Yes! Once more to the big city, this time because the AORN conference was VERY close to home. I traveled down early to be sure to visit some sites. My first stop is just across from the visitor center where they recently added a piece about George Washington's house while he lived in Philadelphia.

The kick-off page features a scrap of patriotic paper on the bottom with a frayed edge and a vintage style sticker border on top. I like my photos on this page very much, even if it is a fairly simple design.

I walked over to re-visit the Poe house and was pleasantly surprised to find that they had added some painted wall coverings to at least give the appearance that this was a lived-in house. I talked to the ranger a bit and he also suggested a biography of Poe that I bought before leaving.

On this layout I again used the decorative paper pack that I believe was either 7x7 or 8x8. On the left I chose the tree and moon to highlight the outside of the house. I added the sticker of a bird under the tree and the journal box with the cat on a fence on top. The rest of the photos simply frame that piece. On the right I used fragments of paper to fill in the background. All of them looked sort of like that full moon on the left so the tone matched. I covered one gap with the crow paper square and another with the unigrid. Nice when it works out like that! I matted the photos in white so they didn't get lost on the page.

My next visit was to the Franklin Court underground museum. I saw the Ranger do a demonstration of the Glass Harmonica--a water based instrument that Franklin invented. I saw quite a few displays but found the place rather dated. The diorama below was supposed to tell the life of Ben Franklin but no longer worked.

For this page I again chose a piece of paper that resembles vintage wallpaper. I found a quote of Ben Franklin's in one of my patriotic paper packs, a left-over sticker from the Philadelphia pack, and pieced the flag heart. This is just the left page because I transitioned to the AORN conference on the next page.

One last visit before leaving town was to Declaration House--a place rarely open when I visit. This is where Thomas Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence and has a museum and recreation of his rooms.

This layout is ALL 8 1/2 x 11 paper! On the left I chose a piece of vellum (same pack as used on the Deschler Morris house page) and a piece of cardstock with the names of the signers of the Declaration of Independence. That made a nice base for the journal box and a couple of photos of the entrance signs. On the right I used 2 pages of 8 1/2 x 11 and layered them to fill the bottom portion of the page. The 1" opening at the top is filled with a sticker flag border and a title box.