Centennial Part 7--Next stop!

Our second trolley stop was the Edgar Allan Poe site. Though a little closer to the Independence visitor center, it's still a longer walk and worked into this schedule nicely. Again we divided into subgroups to not overwhelm the site.

I associate Poe with all things spooky, so I chose this graveyard page to be the background for the site. The "Next Stop" was designed perfectly (red and black) but actually comes from a train layout page!

I actually visited with the rangers in lieu of touring so that I could ensure everyone saw the movie and took the tour. One of the rangers on duty had given me a tour at my previous visit, a fact that I proved to him by finding a photo of him in my phone! After our tour we stopped for lunch. The trolley dropped us off between Pat's and Geno's--classic Philly Cheesesteak rivalry.

So this layout is the other "halves" of the scrapbook kits I previously used. Remember the President's Dinner page with the "Q"? The left page here is the other side of that layout. I thought the background looked like wallpaper/paneling and matched the theme of the house.

On the right is the other half of the picnic page. The item in the bun WAS a hot dog, but since I needed to write about cheesesteaks, I carefully took it apart, chopped up the hot dog paper into chunks and layered them back in with the "mustard" color serving as cheese. I'm rather proud of myself for that move!

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.

Mommy's little helper

If you have cats you will understand that you cannot do ANYTHING without their help. And so it is with photographing my scrapbook albums. Suddenly they are the BEST place to be:

But this post is about the actual pages and we are returning to Philadelphia. Seems like it's been a while though, so a good time to make another visit. Again, this visit takes place just after I've finished a visit to the Mutter museum with my students. My new tradition is to go to City Tavern for lunch. This restaurant is run by the National Park Service and the servers all wear 18th century clothing. The food is served in pewter cups and plates and the food recipes are supposedly all authentic to the time period as well. It's a little pricey, but well worth a trip.After City Tavern I walked over to the Edgar Allan Poe house. That's a pretty good hike, but I was looking forward to visiting the house.

On the left page, I commemorated my visit with a postcard and brochure from the restaurant. No food photos yet, but that will happen later. Very simple decorations including my paper piecing Uncle Sam. He is from an 8 1/2 x 11 paper pad that featured patriotic designs. I had to cut out all the pieces and assemble them. I don't really like "fussy cutting", though I do it when I have to, but I think he turned out fairly well. The yellow background piece is also from that paper pad. I needed something to make the brochure pop from the white page and the yellow ties in the food on the brochure with the orange tones from the Poe page.

The right page is a wall paper technique. The paper is from the Creative Memories heritage papers--nice and dark with swirly designs. Very creepy, just like you would expect from Poe. The corners are a new punch I bought called a tag maker. On the right it does resemble the tombstone and works well. I think I should have trimmed the left one to get rid of the "bump" but it frames the fence nicely. This is a play on the fence around the grounds which you can see in the photo with the raven. As it's my first visit there are not a lot of photos of the inside. I was rather disappointed in the house because it is just a bunch of rooms of peeling paint. Rangers describe Poe's life in the house and city and illustrate with some hand held drawings. Unfortunately this part of Independence NHS doesn't get a large share of the funding and repairs have been put off for many years.

The next layout is not technically part of the National Park. Carpenter's Hall is still held in private hands, but it is such a part of the patriotic theme that I'm going to include it here. This is the site of the FIRST continental congress which brought the grievances together to present to the king. I think I probably visited here BEFORE going to the Poe house as it is in between there and City Tavern but since it made a nice 2-page spread I wanted to keep the 2 pages together.

I bought the title as a die-cut. I seem to have had difficulty placing it in a straight line however. Very simple page highlights. I do like the double mat on the brochure on the left page. Those colors are duplicated in the corners (and truthfully I think they are cut from the same photo mat). The plain stars are punched from red and blue paper. The remaining pieces are stickers from the Eastern National scrapbook kit I've mentioned before. They do a good job of filling up the dead space on the right.