Obscure Monuments Tour part 2--Obscure or Hard to Reach?

 The ranger met us at the WWII memorial kiosk and our first stop was the John Paul Jones memorial. I've seen this statue many times so I'm not sure how obscure it is. However, crossing 17th street to get there was the tricky bit. We all arrived safely though and the ranger was able to tell us about his naval exploits (noting he was sometimes thought more of a pirate than a naval officer).

This layout is based on a sketch from my October class. I had remnants of the star paper which served as the borders. I chose 2 other papers for a naval feel, even though they don't really have a Revolutionary War feel to the papers. The left side is a page I bought for our visit to the Naval Academy in Annapolis. The right side is a blue-toned camouflage. I was a little afraid that all the patterns would clash but after questioning it on the Facebook page, everyone assured me it worked so I left it. I added a couple of embellishments from the Deep Blue Sea pack as well for the title and journal card. The anchor is a VERY old CM die cut.

We walked along Independence Avenue and came to the monument recognizing the first delivery of the Japanese Cherry trees that make the tidal basin so famous. The lantern was recently moved to this location so that it would be less obscure (sort of ironic). This area has the original trees (or at least the ones that didn't die). They are a slightly different species than the ones along the tidal basin.

I had purchased a kit from Club Scrap with an oriental/Cherry Blossom theme to it. I chose one of the pages from that kit for the photos. Even though it's fall and the trees are not blooming, I wanted to highlight that the story is about Cherry Trees. My photos matched the layout well and I only needed to add a few more flowers to the small top boxes to complete the page.

Monumental Memories

 I walked from the Mall toward the Tidal Basin, passing a few well-known statues. I made my way to the MLK memorial where I would meet with a ranger for a guided tour of the larger units along the path. This will be the first time I see it in this direction.

For this layout, I followed the 1-2-3 layout for February 2021. The video of the sketch being put together can be found on YouTube here. The download is available through her Facebook group. I used a paper from the CM texture pack "Stone". The black marble and tan stone on the opposing sides reminded me of the materials used in these monuments. Even though they don't all stand together, it brings them together on the layout. The cuts were simple and I had just a few embellishments to add. The ship on John Paul Jones' statue is from the Eastern National Scrapbook pack. The "Monumental Memories" title is a die-cut from that pack as well. The small honor and star stickers were from a different patriotic sticker sheet.

Along the Mall

My next page is just a few random monuments that I went by on my way back to the Metro. The top left photo is John Paul Jones whose statue is in a very busy traffic island. To the right is the World War Memorial for DC and of course the bottom is the Washington Monument. I liked the sunset look here too. In fact, it is probably just me turning 180-degrees from my picture of the Lincoln Memorial in the WWII reflecting pool.

The page was created from this challenge on the Creative Memories Blog. Although I didn't participate in that virtual crop, I do save all the ideas in my Pinterest folder and often come back to do them later. I liked the easy way I created the background. This actually allowed me to use some of my 8 1/2 x 11" paper because I could cut off strips and layer them into a "V" on the page. Once the pieces were in place, I trimmed off the excess at the edges. The title is a die cut from the Eastern National scrapbook pack. Then I just had to mount the photos and journal and it was done!

This ends my DC trip, but next week I will highlight a trip to Wisconsin!