Homeward Bound

I'm sure you all had similar feelings during Covid. Since we were homebound during the first few months, we would do ANYTHING to relieve our cabin fever and feelings of monotony. So in April 2020, on National Junior Ranger Day, some friends and I vowed to complete a Junior Ranger booklet for one of the National Parks but to do it from home. I had the Junior Ranger book from last summer's trip to the Grand Canyon, so I pulled it out and completed it. I emailed the rangers and told them I would send it in for verification, but they didn't need me to do that. I was pleasantly surprised in June when I received an envelope with my badge and a lovely postcard from the ranger!

I debated the background for this page. I had been making a lot of Covid-themed pages, and that was what I had looked at first. However, since this is more about the Grand Canyon, I decided to pull this sheet of texture paper from the Creative Memories Leave Nothing Behind collection. The postcard took up a lot of room, so I wanted to keep the photos smaller. They did need to be matted, though, because the background paper was a bit "noisy." I chose blue to match the sky portion of the paper and the journal box. The stickers on the journal box are from the CM Covid paper pack (Love Each Other 2). Because the paper was so busy, I didn't need more embellishments besides my "time travel" arrow.

Madness in the Desert Part 11--Bandits!

Too soon, it was time to return to the train and ride back to our hotel. Our club was perhaps a BIT more reserved on the ride back as we were a little tired from our excursions. We had more visitors--singers as well as the sheriff, but.....

This layout is based on a pin I saved. The paper I used is the Close To My Heart Dakota paper. I do like the pattern, but it was difficult to find. I think it was a specialty pack made for one of their conventions (just based on some of the layouts I've seen using it). I cut the title from the same paper using my Cricut. I outlined it in black a bit to give a little more contrast with the blue paper. There is an 8 1/2 x 11 pocket page slipped between the 2 pages of the layout (which didn't really matter as the right page isn't connected to the left significantly). Here is where I cut another piece from the park newsletter to augment the information about the bandits.

Our train was "attacked" by the bandits (who looked just like the characters from this morning's performance) who "demanded" that we fork over our valuables. Essentially this is the way they collect tips and it was sort of funny. I tried putting a dollar bill in my mouth for them to collect but they chose to just pluck it from my mouth (no stolen kisses--drat!) 

The back of the pocket stumped me for a bit but then I decided that it was a good place to store my Junior Ranger booklet (and you'll see more information on that as we get into the Covid years!) The right side page is simply wallpaper. When you use paper from one of the hobby stores, there is often a 1/2" strip that has the bar code printed so that the stores can scan the purchases. They have transitioned the opposite side of that to a decorative border. I placed that along the right edge to finish the page.

Madness in the Desert Part 10--Hopi House

Our visit had 2 areas where Native Americans were highlighted. Hopi House was never a real home but was designed in the early 1900s to resemble traditional Pueblo-style buildings. Inside is a souvenir store, museum, and art gallery. It was a lovely place to explore especially as it was cooler indoors! Outside this structure was a small stage; later that afternoon I enjoyed some Native American music and dancing.

This layout was made for the Scrap Your Stash 2019 October class. It's a 1-2-3 from Noreen Smith but as it was a paid-for class I cannot show you the sketch. I always like it when paper stretches across the fold of a layout! Nothing brings the 2 sides together better! The paper I chose is from an older CM pack called "Fall In". Even though this page has nothing to do with "Fall" that paper worked for my design!

I made this layout 5 years ago and am trying to remember where the stickers came from, but I bought them to decorate this type of page. The title stickers are from a Club Scrap kit. The background of the sticker matched the long strips of paper near the bottom. I of course needed more letters to spell what I wanted. I turned a "3" upside down for the last "e" and then used a blank sticker to add the "H" for House. It's too bad I didn't have one in black.

Madness in the Desert Post 9--Pretty as a Picture

One of the places we stopped was the Museum of the Kolb Brothers. They had become famous (and wealthy) by taking photos of people as they descended into the canyon (this was before the area became a national park, though they continued in some fashion even after that declaration). I enjoyed seeing their old cameras along with the prints they took. The boat was from an expedition to try movie cameras.

This layout is from Scrapbook Concierge. Though it isn't in their current product list, you can see this on their Amazon page. Their kits come unassembled and the bottom of the left page felt like putting together a jigsaw puzzle (and I'm missing a piece!) I don't often use their kits, though I do like them. They tend to have a giant element like the canyon piecing, which takes up valuable real estate on the pages. I can use peekaboo pockets to add material of course. The "Pretty as a Picture" title was cut on the Cricut. The Grand Canyon title on the bottom right was part of the kit.

Madness in the Desert Part 8--Below the Rim

Knowing we had a train to catch, we knew we'd never climb down to the Phantom ranch but we wanted to go INTO the canyon a little bit so we started down the Bright Angel Trail. We got a selfie with our heads below the rim. We went as far as the first tunnel and then returned. Given the heat of the day, that was the right choice. I would still like to get to Phantom Ranch someday though!

This layout is based on another Club Scrap kit, this one is their Remix kit (offered several years after the initial launch). Scroll to pages 7 and 8. One thing I realized was that I would have to be OK with using the theme of National Parks without having a visit to the specific national park on the paper. Since the design paper had a mix of them, it didn't really matter that one said Yellowstone and we were at the Grand Canyon. It gave the right tone to the layout. It has quite a simple layout, just some decorative elements on the top left and bottom right and then a thin border element. The rest is all matted photos! 

Madness in the Desert Part 7--Go West

After stopping at Verkamps for stamps 😁, we continued to walk along the trail west of the village. Though there is a bus that will take you farther, we decided to just see how much we could walk on our own (though being mindful of needing to be back to catch the return trip!) To get an idea of how far we walked, you can see in the photo with Jim that it has an arrow pointing to the El Tovar hotel on the horizon. That's where we were dropped off!

This layout uses Club Scrap's National Park Lite kit (look at layout pages 1 and 2). I waited to add the mats so I was able to put my photos on in a way that worked for my trip, such as putting the journal box on the left page. The camera embellishment is a vinyl sticker that I picked up on the trip.

Madness in the Desert Part 6--Speechless

We had been to the Grand Canyon before, but the first glimpse you get still takes your breath away. Our first glimpse was as the train pulled into the station. We were delivered to the western side of the south rim and we didn't go too far from that area. But every few feet seems like another world. The photos simply do not do it justice. You have to go there to see it.

I made this layout using red cardstock and the Kit 14 dies from Photo Dies. The nice part of the dies is that it cuts that frame for your photos when you cut the mat. That makes it much easier than using a stencil template (like the Lea France ones) to create the same effect. The right page worked much better for my layout as it is the most symmetrical, but the left page fits in just fine. The center block on the right page is from the Eastern National scrapbook kit. The other 2 are stickers and memorabilia from the trip. I also had a Club Scrap sticker left from their National Parks kit which I squeezed into the left side layout.

Madness in the Desert part 5--All Aboard

We got in line to board. Our group had tickets for the same car near the front of the train. We didn't fill the car so I do feel bad for those non-NPTC members who joined us! We got a little raucous. 

This layout is based on a pin I saved. This is all cut on the Cricut. I had planned on a giant oval track but when I changed to a 2-page spread, I cut it in half and used it on the top and bottom of each page. I did like the train title. I also cut the railroad crossing sign for the bottom right. The newspaper title is from one of their newsletters. I chose to cut it up and use selected portions of it on my pages. I did mount it in a sleeve to protect the photos. You'll see more of it in another post. 

While on the train we had some visitors. First, a roving musician sang some songs and invited us to join in. Also, the sheriff came through to ensure we were safe from the "bandits". Our poor cabin steward (in the white shirt bottom left) didn't know what to do with us. On a normal trip when no one knows anyone else in the car it can be quiet. We were so loud she had to shout to get our attention and tell us what to do when pulling into the Grand Canyon station. 

This layout is based on another pin I saved featuring some older Creative Memories products. It's one of the most simple pages but it works quite well. I chose 2 colors of cardstock to match the photos--light blue and brown. Each item is matted and then clipped with the corner-rounder. It's a tool I used to use quite often but now is only pulled out on a special occasion.

Madness in the Desert Part 4--How the West was Fun

 Our first event with the club was on Thursday. They had arranged a train ride from a nearby town up to the Grand Canyon. Though Jim and I had been there before, it seemed like it would be a great event so we bought tickets. We arrived early as I was tasked with handing out tickets to people as they arrived. We still had time to catch a bit of a Western cowboy show held near the train depot.It was very tongue in cheek but just because it's geared for children, don't think the adults didn't enjoy it as well! 

I based this layout on the pin that I saved. I doubled the layout for the 2-page spread. The wood papers were trimmed so that the scrapbook pages provided a natural border around them. The papers and stickers mostly came from the Dakota papers in the Close to My Heart kit but I added a few mats in blue bandana design.

After the show, it was time to board the train. But as we moved toward the train my eye was caught by the fun tombstones and the face cut-out characters. Those are some of my favorite photo ops and I insisted on stopping and getting some photos. I mean, how can you pass up the chance to be the engineer from Schoolhouse Rock?!?

This layout is basically wallpaper as the printed sheets didn't need much additional work. Don't look too closely though or you'll see that they weren't QUITE 12x12 and there are some gaps in the middle. The only other addition is a journal box I've had in my stash for a while. It seemed a great place to put something that colorful. The title was of course cut on the Cricut to preserve my sanity.

It's All There in Black and White

Lots of photos for you today! The next set of displays focused on a brilliant photographer named Ansel Adams. Known for his dramatic photos of landscapes using black and white photography, a group of designers used the black and white motif to present multiple national parks in this theme and even included large prints of Adams as backdrops. I am putting them all in this post as I think they should be seen together. 

The first park represented was one I would not think of seeing in black and white--Kalaupapa National Historical Park in Hawaii. The site is now a place of refuge but had originally been isolation for those with leprosy and other infectious diseases. It's now home to many rare plant species. The cascading flowers create a lot of movement in a still-life I think.

This layout was created for another challenge in the CM Virtual Crop in February 2021. I again turned to the mystery box papers. I thought blue was a good color to offset the black and white flowers. Two of the papers had ombre tones in them and I thought flipping the stripe ombre (dark top, light bottom) on the regular paper (light top, dark bottom) highlighted the cascades on the photos. I chose yellow stickers to accent the page as well. There are some ivory/yellow tones in some of the "white" photos--though that might be artifact from the lights in the space.

The next part of the display was the domed room of Carlsbad Caverns. I have visited this park but not been in the cave so I definitely need to go back someday. I do like going through caves, as long as there is ample room to walk. I'm not one of those who want to go on the cave tour where you have to shimmy through a box to prove you won't get stuck. Let's just admit that I'll get stuck and leave me on the regular path!

This layout is another sketch from the virtual crop. More importantly, it used a template that was included in the mystery box. Check out the blog post here to see the sketch and a photo of the template (you couldn't buy it, you could only get it in the mystery box). I will be the first to admit, I don't really like using templates. I've used them several times and I always seem to mess up the cuts and ruin the intended "symmetry". This one had a lot of straight angles so I figured I could use my trimmers to make the cuts, which helped a little. I chose papers from the O Canada pack. The darker background reminded me of stone and the yellow I chose just as an accent. The diamond-shaped pieces are from a scrap of stone paper I still had. I thought it would help fill in the page since I didn't have many photos of this section. I finished by using an icicle border maker cartridge to punch stalactites and stalagmites for the edges. That's probably the part of the layout I like best.

Next stop, the Grand Canyon! I've been here twice now and I can't say that I ever knew there were aspen groves! I focus so much on the canyon that I forget there are other things. Here they are collected and secured with flowers around the middles. 

This was one more of the challenges for the virtual crop. I changed the number of photos in the original sketch, which you can see here. I utilized paper from the Camouflage pack. The background paper is birch bark and I turned it so that there was some definition against the direction of the trees in the photo. I also used leafy paper in the middle to help the photos stand out. Two brown borders also helped define the photos. One is a leftover border and I liked that it had the hiking boots printed on it. I chose the CM Stamping set to create the title. I thought that the uneven covering of ink on the letters also represented the tree bark.

OK, we come to the last layout in the Ansel Adams collection. This one is King's Canyon--another site I've not been to. Though I found out recently that my grandparents did! I have their photo album from the 1960s when they went on several cross-country trips and my grandmother labeled many of the sites so I know where they are. Now I can recreate their photo when I visit!

One more sketch from the virtual crop (check it out here). I returned to the mystery box papers and to the use of blue to offset the black and white flowers. For one of the circular elements, I chose to create a journal box by using the custom cutting system on a piece of ruled paper. I accented with some stickers (top and bottom) from a couple of older, non-related CM packs. But I thought the colors and tones matched the layout. My favorite piece of this layout is the border at the top and bottom. I used a new border maker cartridge called "Mirrored Triangles". In addition to punching a set in white, I punched a set in black and used that to edge the white against the striped paper. It gives a great shadow effect. The title was one of our laser-cut titles. I love those packs. So much easier than splicing letters together!

50-states album part 2--Arizona

My next state to highlight is Arizona. I only chose 1 photo for this page, at least for now. I may decide to add one more photo to the bottom left corner.

This layout was scraplifted from this one. For this state, I cut the outline in black and then mounted it on a backing paper in a sunburst orange. The title was cut with the same paper as the bottom border and the blue dots and other decorative stripes are (to me) reminiscent of Native American designs. The snake and cactus provide a nice balance to the bottom page. I may add another photo in the bottom left corner someday, but I at least can say it is done at this point.

No Fooling--There's a reason they call it "Grand"

I was planning on posting this Friday night, but could not resist another April Fools Day Post. Plus it's Easter and the canyon walls are striped like Easter eggs. What a perfect fit!

Well, after the 5 HOUR bus ride (see last week's comments) we arrived at the Grand Canyon. The bus driver had said that no photo could do justice to the actual beauty of the area, and he was right. While this series of layouts commemorates the visit I made, the colors just cannot compare to seeing the canyon with your own eyes. If you haven't gone yet, please plan to do so!

The left page of this layout is actually wallpaper. I had purchased a series of papers from Ebay which you'll see in the next few layouts. The bottom 3 "photos"  are actually part of the paper, which allowed me to focus on photos of me and my family at the canyon. The right page features a detailed die cut from Paper Wizard. I purchased it at a scrapbook convention in Lancaster and the idea for the page was actually featured in their booth. I took a photo and scraplifted it as part of the kickoff for this trip.

We were given just 2 hours to walk from our drop off point on the eastern side of the south rim to the pick up spot on the western side (in the village). It made me feel rushed, but we did take time to photograph the area.

The right page was my attempt to show the distance to the north rim. I took one photo at wide angle lens and then a zoom photo of the same spot. I thought it rather clever to highlight the similarities in the photos with different sized black rings. The sticker between them is supposed to be an arrow with a right angle turn, but it was a bit too transparent and I think it gets a little lost on the page.

About halfway to our destination we came across the nature walk that describes the formation of the canyon. I do think we went backwards, but it was still interesting.

As I mentioned, all of these papers are wall paper. For the left page above I augmented the text that was pre-printed on the page. I thought adding the word "geology" would provide context for the trail. And we made it to the destination area in plenty of time!