Fit for a Queen

Welcome back to the December 2021 Hudson Valley trip. Today, we finish the Home of Franklin Delano Roosevelt by looking at the guest quarters. The 2 rooms shown below look fairly standard for the period and much like rooms in traditional homes. So would it surprise you to know that the royalty of Europe, including King George VI, Queen Elizabeth of England, and Queen Wilhelmina of the Netherlands, stayed here? So did Winston Churchill! I'm sure it was very different from their palaces at home. I wonder what they thought of the accommodations.

This layout is based on one of the sketches in the CM 101 Sketches book (page 61). I returned to the Homestead collection, which was down to just scraps. I used a piece of charcoal cardstock as the base and one strip of paper to create the peekaboo strip on the right. Under that strip is layered several border stickers and a couple of laser-cut borders. A final laser-cut border was cut in half and placed under the edges of the paper to extend the element. Both photos were double-mounted on the mat cards from the collection. A few final stickers complete the layout.

FDR the Boy

Welcome back to my 2021 Hudson River Valley tour. We are continuing our look at the Home of FDR. Upstairs, there is the room where he was born, as well as the room where he lived as a child. This page focuses on the childhood room and the bathroom adjoining. It is the privilege of the oldest son to have this room, and Franklin passed this on to his sons as well. But it is now restored to how FDR would have had it as a boy, including books he collected, framed prints, diplomas, and little trinkets.

This layout is one of the most basic standard layouts. When you have 4 items, 2 vertical and 2 horizontal, you can mimic this layout quite easily. By alternating the directions, you create a visual circle that takes the reader's eye around the page. When I realized I had 2 vertical and 1 horizontal photo, I grabbed a horizontal journal mat to finalize the layout. I chose this historic sports-looking card from the Graphic 45 collection. I like to think that, as a youth, FDR would have been interested in sports, and this card is about the right time frame. I used some of the Homestead collection for the remaining elements. Depending on the size of your photos, you will likely have room for a border at the top or bottom. I used this laser-cut border from the Homestead collection to finish off the page. The arrangement leaves a large square in the center, which is the perfect place to put a title sticker!

Grow Up

Welcome back to the 2021 Hudson River Valley trip. Today, we continue exploring the FDR home in Hyde Park. As you enter the house, the entryway and foyer contain many souvenirs from the Roosevelts' world travels. Large cabinets from Asia and Europe, even a gong. Added later, after the home became a tourist spot, was an interesting statue of FDR as a young man. Not shown in a wheelchair, but not showing his legs either. Interesting juxtaposition of ideas.

This layout is one of Club Scrap's Industrial Evolution kit. Scroll to layouts 7 and 8. When I saw the quote spread across the pages, I thought it was a good match for the life that FDR led after being diagnosed with polio so young. I manipulated the mats a bit by turning 2 of them to horizontal positions and using one of the smaller ones as a journal box.

The rest of the downstairs is shown below. You'll maybe remember this from a bonus post I made for Lasting Memories in early February.

Hyde and Seek

Happy St. Patrick's Day, everyone! Welcome back to the 2021 Hudson River Valley trip. Our second stop of the day was the Franklin D. Roosevelt home. This is where he was born and grew up. He kept it as an adult for a country house getaway. He and Eleanor are also buried here. The grounds include the home, some barns, the graveyard, and his Presidential Library. Today's visit is just to the house.

This layout is based on a sketch I saved from Noreen Smith's 2018 Scrap Your Summer Stash Saturdays event. I'm sure I've used this sketch before, but its versatility makes it easy to reuse endlessly! I continued using the Recollections paper pack. The best part of this sketch is that you can use your scraps. It takes just two 10x5 strips and one 12x2.5 strip across the middle. Want to dress it up? Add some borders above and below the 12x2.5 strip. Or across the middle of the strip. 

Bonus post--Making it Work

Hello all! I'm adding a bonus post as I'm playing with Lasting Memories Challenges again. This post shows some of the downstairs areas of the Franklin D. Roosevelt House in Hyde Park, near Poughkeepsie, New York. This is part of my Hudson River Valley tour, which you'll see soon. When FDR contracted Polio, the house had to be modified to accommodate his wheelchair. The stairs to the downstairs rooms were replaced with ramps. Luckily, the family had put in an early elevator to haul luggage from the bedrooms to the entry hall. FDR used that for transport upstairs.

I put this layout together for the Lasting Memories challenge: using a quote. Since that's the only rule, I started by looking for a sketch to follow, and I chose this sketch from Club Scrap. They post a bonus sketch for those who receive monthly kits. I found a few of the layout instructions, so I was able to use them for my pages. I chose papers from the latest CM Decades packs. This one uses papers and stickers from the 1920s-1930s, which are right in the home's time period. I wanted to highlight how the Roosevelt family accommodated FDR's paralysis from polio, beginning when he was 21. I found a sticker that says, "Happiness depends more on the inward disposition of mind than on outward circumstances" (Benjamin Franklin). I thought that an apt saying for these photos and his drive to overcome his illness.