Little known parts of Independence

May of 2012 and it's "Take My Students to the Mutter" time again! On this afternoon, once I dispersed the students to their own devices, I walked through some areas I'd never visited before. They are loosely affiliated with Independence, or at least they list them on their website. Benjamin Rush was a physician during the Revolutionary War and he lived in Philadelphia. He actually helped found the College of Physicians of Philadelphia where the Mutter Museum is located, so I've been learning about him through my many visits there. They have a medicinal herb garden named after him. On my walk through Philly I found his house site and his grave. Christ Church is known more for having Ben Franklin buried there, but it was a double treasure for me to see Rush's grave.

Both pages are wallpaper. On the left I needed something to balance the greenery of the photos, so chose brown tones. I like the swirl on the paper--it makes me think of Grecian columns. The journal box was from the Vintage card pack from Creative Memories. I thought the edge set off from the swirls nicely. On the right is actually a remnant of paper. I mounted it right and then tried to "hide" the missing left edge by mounting the map of the burial ground and the photo of Franklin's grave flush left. There's a tiny bit of un-papered page showing, but not much.

My other stop of the day wasn't exactly part of Independence NHP, but it was in the same genre. There is a group that keeps the Ross house as a museum. The Ross's were real people, but there is no real proof she sewed the flag of our country. Nonetheless, it's a good way to teach people about liberty and the house tour was a nice end to my visit.

This is of course wallpaper again. I thought the antique looking flag the perfect background. The circle of stars frames the entry ticket nicely and the stripes provide a nice background to the photo of the house and the commemorative plaque. I wish I could remember where the paper came from, but nothing comes to mind.

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.

I have taken a house in Germantown...

And a return to Philadelphia! I hope you aren't tired of these visits as we have a lot more! This is again after my annual student trip to the Mutter museum. This time I made the LONG journey by bus out to the Germantown White House or Deshler Morris House. This is where George Washington stayed as president while trying to escape the rampant disease in the downtown Philly area.




























I surprised myself by not having any photos of the interior of the house. I'm sure I was allowed to take them but perhaps they didn't turn out well. So, I did get a shot of the front of the house and the garden in the back. The page was simply made. The confetti look is achieved through an 8 1/2 x 11 piece of vellum with the confetti printed on it. I added a scrap of blue to the right side to close the gap. This also allowed me a place to journal. The stickers are from the same sheet used in the previous Independence Hall page. Looks a little like Martha?

Guess who's in Philly again?

If you guessed me, you're right! For my niece's birthday I gave her a certificate for a trip to any National Park with me. She could bring a friend and she also got a souvenir. Sierra chose to go to Independence National Historical Park for New Year's Eve and took her mom. The weather was a bit snowy but we made the trek down successfully. As it is a low visitation time of year you can simply pick up tickets at the visitor center and we essentially walked right onto the next tour. We had time afterward to see the Liberty Bell.

I had bought a piece of 12x12 paper with an image of the Declaration of Independence on it so I thought it the perfect wallpaper for the left side of this layout. On the right I added some decorative stickers but mostly just mounted and framed the photos and memorabilia. I love the patriotic/colonial stickers I found but cannot remember where I got them. That's too bad because I really would like another sheet.

Once again to Philadelphia

We've arrived at my pages for spring 2009 and even though I feel like I just posted about Philadelphia, it's time for the trip to the city with my students again. This time after we finished the museum and I ate lunch at City Tavern, I walked further south to Gloria Dei Church, also called Old Swede's church. Like the Franklin Memorial, this isn't one of the NPS units--it's an affiliated unit and run in conjunction with Independence National Historical Park. However, since it's the only pictures I took of this visit, I include it here.

This structure is one of the earliest churches built in America and it is still in use. I did take the photos on the outside of the structure and the one of the organ. The view of the main seating area is actually a card I bought while on site.  It's a self-guided tour and I recommend looking through the old graveyard next to the church.

I love the colors I chose on this layout. I don't know that I really matched them to anything in the photos but it just flows. I used 2 sheets of paper and tore them with a wavy tearing tool at about 6 inches. Then I reversed one set of pages and made the 2 complimentary backgrounds. Just enough room for journaling and I didn't really need any more embellishments.

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.

Independence Hall 2005

So, another spring and another class trip to Philadelphia. This year I made plans to get tickets to tour Independence Hall. They have also completed construction on the new Liberty Bell pavilion which includes the museum pieces and x-rays of the bell. There is a much better view of Independence Hall from the Liberty Bell itself but a little tricky to get just yourself in the photo!

The 2-page layout above is an example of the wallpaper technique. This is the Jewel tone Fourth of July set from Creative memories. All I had to do was add a couple of mats to set off some of the lighter toned elements (like the ticket to enter Independence Hall) and the page comes together fairly quickly. Journaling on printed paper is too difficult so I have a plain white journal box. If I HAD to edit the page I might add something fancier to the journal box, like a sticker or 2. Or maybe journal in blue or red ink.

This layout also benefits from my standby scrapbook fodder: postcards. I ALWAYS get a postcard or two when I stop by a new site. They are professional photos that I will most likely NEVER be able to replicate. They really set the scene and provide detail. I tend to mount them like photos unless there is something very unusual on the back (like a good description of an object or area). In that case, I will mount them with photo corners but that's a pretty rare occurrence for me.

This became a 3-page layout which is a little unusual for me. I do a LOT of 2-page layouts except for the last page of an album. The third page was more of the city life page concept then the national park itself. You can see that I incorporated more of the photo stickers on the page. Otherwise it is a simple border piece (pre-cut from a pack from Creative Memories) and a piece of scrap paper also from the jewel tone pack mentioned above.

Would love to hear your comments, so take a moment and drop me a line below!

My First Little Blue Book

My next entry is a single page from Independence. I took my Surgical Technology class to Philadelphia to see the Mutter Museum. After the museum I walked down to Independence National Historical Park and was able to see the Liberty Bell. If you examine the photos closely you'll see that the space between the visitor center and Independence Hall is rather undeveloped. The Liberty Bell is off to the side in a small building and there was no museum of information--just the bell. The grass isn't even mowed much in the park space.

But what is most important about this trip is this is when I finally decided to purchase the National Parks Passport and I got my first stamp. Just one. I also bought the sticker pack and thought that I was supposed to stamp across the sticker so it's really hard to read the bottom. I quickly deduced that was a mistake and haven't done it since :)

Here is that first stamp:

I like the border I made though my spacing is a bit off. That is a pack of stickers available at the Visitor Center gift shop and I think they help balance out my photographic inabilities. I think at the time that I was convinced I didn't need photo mats but looking back I think they would have helped the page a bit.