Sounds of Freedom

As I promised in the last post, here is the Fort Washington Cannon Firing event. I always enjoy seeing these, and by now, I understand the various steps. You can see from my photos how far away the reenactors were from the crowd. These photos were taken with Zoom to allow me to see more details. You can also see in the top horizontal photo that there is a small box well behind the cannon. This is where the ordinance is kept, and there is quite a production of someone being told to fetch it, taking it out of the box and putting it in a satchel, and then walking the few feet to the cannon, where it is removed from the satchel and fired. The boom is always a loud shock for me, even though I know it's coming.

For this layout, I wanted to utilize the black shadow border and die cut I bought for Civil War pages. The border includes horses pulling the cannon, and the die cut is the rammer. Again, brick paper would work against the photos, but a dark red paper (I think this is called cinnamon, and it's the last 2 pages I have of this color) gives the impression of brick without the distracting detail. To add a little military flavor, I chose the old CM border maker cartridge, Chevrons. I punched them in navy blue cardstock and then placed a bronze shimmer piece behind it to make the sergeant stripes. A few items from the stash provided the titles. I used the new ivory write strips for journaling to make it easier to see on the page.

Up Against a Wall

This post continues our discussion of Fort Washington during the 2021 NPTC convention. The tour included lunch and a cannon firing demonstration. You'll see the cannon next time. We grabbed our box lunches when they arrived and tried to find a bit of shade to eat. There were no picnic tables within the fort grounds, so we formed a line along one of the walls that offered some shade. This is another location with a LOT of stamps, so they put tables out in front of the commander's house for us to do our thing. That's the bottom right photo. 

This sketch is based on a sketch that CM provided to advisors. When we offered more Theme packs (which consisted of a couple of printed papers, a sheet of cardstock, and a sheet of stickers), they wanted to share ideas on how to use them to create pages. You can view the sketch here, and if you click "visit site," you should be able to download a copy if you haven't seen it already. I used the Bedazzled collection for these pages, along with some brighter, more patriotic papers. One sheet of paper is split across the bottom of the page. Another paper is cut at 5" and 1" twice and then layered on top (using both sides of the paper). The border across the middle is a brick border punch, and it picks up the walls in the photos perfectly. I had actually toyed with brick paper as the background, but honestly, the images were getting lost. The sketch shows some 3x4 pictures at the bottom left and right. I chose to make a couple of banners for each side as decoration. 

A New Slant to the Fort

Today, we continue the 2021 NPTC convention in DC. The next stop on the Friday bus trip was to Fort Washington. Two of the park's more interesting features have little to do with the military fort. In the layout below, you will see the Eastern Cedar tree that is growing at a slant. It makes you look twice to decide which of you is on more solid footing! Another reason to stop at this fort is to visit the Fort Washington Lighthouse. I've featured that before, when I participated in the Maryland Lighthouse Challenge. The planned bus stop didn't allow me enough time to walk down and see it up close again, but I could see it from the fort walls.

To make this layout, I chose to use a sketch from Cheryl Even's work with Split Coast Stampers. I wanted to use this as a kick-off page, as I knew the remaining photos would all take 2 pages for the story. I used Sweet Blossom for this page. You may not notice it right away, but the papers are all 11.5" long. That creates a 1/4" border around the layout. The background is beige cardstock, so it's a subtle difference, but I like that it isn't too garish. I needed to trim the 4x6 journal box to fit the space, so I ended up cutting one of the corners; however, it didn't impact my ability to journal.

Bonus post--Fort Washington

I am playing along with Lasting Memories today so here's a bonus post as I join their "WINTER" games. 

In October 2019 I participated in the Maryland Lighthouse Challenge. One of those is not only a lighthouse but a National Park Unit! This light was placed near the fort in the 1800s and while nominally under the jurisdiction of the US Coast Guard, the keepers were required to abide by the direction of the Fort's military commanders. There never were any battles so other than ensuring competence and compliance I think they had little to worry about. The lighthouse is still working but instead of the large Fresnel lens, it now boasts a small but powerful LED light (very common today). Because the structure is less important, it has been neglected and is in very poor condition sadly. The most interesting part of the lighthouse is the large triangle with the number 80 inside. This was the identification marker so ship captains could locate their position by the color and markers along the Potomac River.

To meet the challenge, I needed to use items beginning with the letters in Winter on my layout. I used:

Woodgrain paper (one of the background sheets)

Inked edges (around the triangle I made on the vellum)

Navy (the other background sheet)

Tag and triangle (tag on the upper right page and triangle on the lower right page)

Enamel embellishments (there are stars and a fish on the tag)

Ripped paper (I ripped the small scrap under the triangle I made)

I typically am daunted by the word challenges but it is a fun way to ensure you have a variety of elements on the paper. If you participate, let me know what you used for your letters! Need some help? I did and I used this handy guide that you'll see as a link in the challenge page. I based the layout on this sketch I saved. The background is papers from Creative Memories as well as Club Scrap. By welding the 2 halves on each side I only needed one sheet of each. I had made the tag at the Creative Memories convention when Serene Waters was launched. The border across the middle (mirrored triangles) is punched on a coordinating collection called Summer Nights. That was a secret box collection and it's great that it works so well as it expands my ability to use the collection components like mats and stickers.