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.

Photographic Memory

My trip ended with a visit to Flight 93 NM. I stopped by as they have a new item--the Tower of Voices. You'll see that in the next post. Since I've been here several times I decided to complete the Junior Ranger book. I didn't follow the trail, just looked at the memorial materials near the visitor center.

I've had this background paper on hand for a while now. I originally bought it to highlight the Walk 93 I did with my sister but used different papers for that one. So when I was planning out the album I pulled these 2 photo pages and they ended up being a good base for my trip this time. The papers are from Forevermore Scrapbook in York PA. We would always go there during the Buggies and Buds Shop Hop. They had several floors of wonderful products. But even better, they had a large inventory of photo pages like this covering many national park sites and lighthouses. I struggled a bit with creating this layout. I re-watched a video from Noreen Smith on working with photo pages and she said that you either wanted to make the photos similar to the background or wildly different. I chose similar ones but matted them to stand out from the paper. I also took her advice of adding a border to the bottom of the page. I didn't need many embellishments for my scrapbook page, but I added a grassy journal box and a plane that I thought added to the pages.

Following Their Footsteps

Jim and I reached the beach! It's not a popular spot for sunbathing so there were many pristine areas. I found a few different sets of animal tracks in the sand. We had the option to do a "loop" for the return trip and we did. Along the way, we saw some interesting trees or perhaps it's early driftwood?

This layout uses paper from Sweet Summer and a sketch from the CM 101 Sketches book (a promo from earlier this year). I can't show you the sketch, but if you have the book it is on page 45. You can see from the photo below that there is an 8 1/2 x 11 pocket page between the 2 pages of the layout. While I used the same background pages, the topics were slightly different, so I didn't mind separating them. The wavy borders are one laser-cut piece that I snipped to the length of the column. The seashells are a border punch from CM. I punched them on ivory-toned paper and then inked them with a bit of brown ink on a dauber to give them some texture. The stickers on the pocket page are from the Eastern National scrapbook kit

While there I took time to complete the Junior Ranger book. Below is a photo of me being sworn in by the rangers.

Because the background paper was so scenic, I chose only to add a couple of stickers from the Junior Ranger sticker book (available at most national park gift stores). The reason I needed the pocket page was the size of the junior ranger book and certificate. 

2018 Convention Part 11--Rain Rain Go Away

Sunday morning our club had planned to have a Ranger Talk focusing on the life of Frederick Douglass in New Bedford. Mother Nature had other ideas and due to the rain, the walk was canceled. Instead, we met in the visitor center and looked at the displays while we talked about the life and times of Frederick Douglass. While we did that I also had a chance to complete the junior ranger books for both the New Bedford Whaling and Frederick Douglass in Massachusetts.

For this layout, I turned to an older Virtual Crop sketch from Creative Memories. I turned the sketch 90 degrees so that I could use the 3 photos for the park brochure. There was just one photo of me in my rain poncho in front of the museum so I highlighted that (see the photo below). I wanted to include both of my junior ranger books so I chose to add a large (6x12) Peekaboo pocket. I used a piece of coordinating paper and attached the brochures with photo corners.

The vertical border is from one of the border maker cartridges. I punched 3 borders total--one in ivory as the front piece. I then layered black "shadow" strips to the left and right. To save paper you can also cut one in half and "stretch" it across the item.

South to Richmond

Beginning this week we move forward to August 2012 to my annual trip to North Carolina with Jim's family. I travel on my own so that I can make stops at some national park units on the way. This year I drove to Richmond. Though I didn't see all of the park, I did see the Tredegar Iron Works and Chimborazo Hospital.

The border for the left page was based on this Father's Day Card. The inner squares use the Creative Memories Postage Stamp punch and then I used their mini car punch to add detail. By mixing up the colors of the cars on the background (sometimes turning them over to get a totally different color) it creates movement on the page. The white square underneath helps highlight the cut out cars in the postage stamps.

The background of the border and the Junior Ranger book on the right are from the same piece of paper. This is an early CM piece when they made papers 10x12. Still, by cutting it and spreading it across 2 pages, you get a lot of use from one sheet. The color block journal box was designed that way, I didn't make it. However, you could certainly use that as a template to make one of your own!

A New Friend

My last stop on the trip was a visit to Albert Gallatin's home called Friendship Hill. Mr. Gallatin was responsible for our treasury set up and for proposing the first National Road. I had a devil of a time finding the place because my GPS kept trying to take me on dirt roads! But I finally made it.

This page is opposite the Turkey Rock page of last week, so essentially kicks off the last section of the book. The page was inspired by this sketch. I like the simplicity of the design, but with the mechanical paper it brings that part of his story out quickly. The edges of the paper were rounded with a paper rounder (like this one) which gives the paper a softer effect.

The main part of my visit was a tour of the house. It was a self-guided tour and I worked on the Junior Ranger program which helped me focus on each of the rooms.

I feel like this is a 2-page layout but when I look at it, it almost seems like 2 pages just next to each other. I liked the wall paper on the left because the chair seemed reminiscent of the older furniture. On the right I used a Scallop Burst Border Maker on the top edge, then chalked the edge with brown ink to bring out the detail (the yellow was a little too light on the Spargo pages I use). The bottom are layered photos which took up quite a bit of space, so the journal box and stickers got the top half of the page by default.

My last page of the album.... I wasn't sure how to finish the journey, but the Junior Ranger book turned to my pledge page seemed a good idea.

The junior ranger book is rather thick, and since I wanted a bit of color I chose cardstock photo corners (a very old Creative Memories kit) in red. The edges of the page use the Medallion border maker cartridge.  A very useful design that has worked in many types of layouts for me. A little journaling about the end of the trip, and the book was done!

I hope you've enjoyed this voyage. Next week we begin my 2012 trip to Atlantic Beach with my in-laws. Lots more stories to come!