The Great Tragedy

Today's blog completes my visit to the Ford's Theater historic site, but don't worry. There are more entries for the 2021 National Park Travelers Club convention coming! In the last blog, we saw that after Booth shot Lincoln, he managed to escape. Lincoln, meanwhile, was rushed out of the theater and across the street to the Peterson House. If you take the right tour, you can also see the rooms of this house, which have been replicated to depict the night and the following day when Lincoln passed away. One of the pillows that was under Lincoln's head is in the museum. I'm assuming they didn't want to display one covered in blood, although some clear stains remain here. The house was purchased by the government in 1895 and is one of the earliest bits of American History preserved.

This layout is based on an idea from Melissa Ullman, the Creative Chatterbox. You can watch a video where she puts a layout together similar to this. It uses several small blocks of decorative paper. Due to the brick building, I selected three shades of brick: red, white, and black. Small strips are used to outline the papers and extend a bit to give them a planned ragged look. I'd like to see what papers you choose when you try this, so send me a link when you do!

After the Fall

Welcome back to the exploration of Ford's Theater during my 2021 NPTC convention trip. You probably know that Booth jumped from the box to the stage, breaking his leg in the process, and still managed to make his escape out the back of the building. He went to a physician named Dr. Mudd. Dr. Mudd treated Booth's broken leg and, in the process, cut off Booth's boot. The boot and the surgical kit are on display in the museum (and as a nurse, one of the more interesting displays in my opinion). And, no, this is NOT from where the phrase "your name is mud" is derived. That phrase had been around for more than 40 years before this event.

This layout is based on one of the CM Advisor project recipes. At the end of 2023, they released an Advisor-only paper pack and this recipe to accompany it. It's not QUITE a 1-2-3 like Noreen Smith usually makes, but it is close. You can see from the cutting guide that you trim four 1" strips from a piece of double-sided paper, then turn the paper 90 degrees and cut at 6". That creates the borders at the top and bottom, and 2 larger pieces for the sides. You place four 4x6 photos in the center to cover the cardstock and make it appear as though the large blocks extend all the way across the page. I only had 3 horizontal photos, so I added a journal mat in the exact same colors as the paper. I also added 2 sets of border stickers to dress up the 1" strips. The round stickers are to simulate gunshots. The title pieces aren't from the same collection, but I didn't mind adding blue and green here because I really wanted those titles for my story.

Booth in the Booth

Today, we're continuing a look at Ford's Theater. As I mentioned in the last post, I had been to the theater before, and so I was familiar with the preservation of the box in which the Lincolns were seated. However, I was previously unable to see inside. Part of the door has been replaced with plexiglass, allowing you to see the space. Down in the museum is the original door, as well as a piece of wood that John Wilkes Booth used to jam the door from the inside, allowing him to complete his plan.

This layout is based on Cheryl Even's sketch #114. I returned to the CM Legacy collection for papers and embellishments. One of the key features of this sketch is a 12" border cut in half and used at the edge of the photos. One change I made to the layout was to use a stack of 4x4 photos where her sketch called for 4x6 images. That gave me more space between those photos and the vertical photo on the page to add some small embellishments. The title circle was trimmed from one of the collection's mats.

A Night to Remember

Today, we continue with the NPTC 2021 convention. On Sunday morning, I arranged a tour of Ford's Theater. Although I had been here once before, the only ticket I could obtain then was for a staged play in the theater (the theater still puts on productions throughout the year). For my 2021 visit, I arranged a tour that included a visit to the museum and a look at the Lincoln Box. 

I chose to organize the photos not so much by when I saw them on the tour, but based on the timeline of the evening. This layout sets the stage by showing the theater, a pair of tickets from that evening's performance (although it is unclear whether they belonged to the Lincolns), and items that would have been part of the evening, such as opera glasses and fans. 

The layout is based on the CM Project Recipe for the Fresh Fusion collection. The use of such dark papers for a recipe layout that was bright and cheery is a little incongruous, but I chose it for the photo array, not the paper colors. The papers are from the Paper Loft collection. Their heritage pack includes some brown and gray tones with wonderful old-time patterns. One pattern features ivory with vines, providing some contrast in the two-layered borders (made with the CM Border Maker System).  

Other than that Mrs. Lincoln, how was the play?

After the Navy Memorial I walked over to Ford's Theatre. I had not been to this site before and I had difficulty finding tickets online to tour the site. You really need to plan in advance for this one. I was able to secure a ticket to see a 1-act play called "Destiny" which told the story of the night Lincoln was shot in a 2-man, prop-filled hour. It's quite good so if you get a chance to see it, buy the tickets! Unfortunately there were no tickets to tour the theater after the play so all I saw was the view from my seat.

This layout is from a kit I purchased from someone on Etsy. It was supposed to be a July 4th layout, as you can see from the Left page and Right page.  The vintage tones of the paper really matched the 19th century theme so I turned it into this historic layout. I used 2 postcards to ensure I told the complete story. The sticker on the journal mat is from the Eastern National scrapbook package.

After the play, I was able to walk across the street to the Peterman House which is where Lincoln was taken after the shooting. The home has been recreated to resemble that fateful night.

This layout uses wallpaper from the Paper Loft heritage line (which to me looks very close to the wallpaper seen in the house). I added a couple of decorative mats from the CM Archivers paper pack and used one of the same pack's journal mats to highlight the photo of the bed (bottom right). The vine on the left is a laser cut border and to ensure it could be seen, I layered it on some lighter toned paper.