Home Town Crowd

Of course, Philadelphia had to be highlighted--the flower show is on their home turf! In fact, there is a ranger presence here from INDE which you'll see later. Independence National Historical Park encompasses not just the Liberty Bell, but also Independence Hall, Thaddeus Kosciuszko, and Edgar Allan Poe houses. While Poe will be highlighted at the end, only the Liberty Bell is used to represent the park. Still, the use of red, white, and blue flowers to create the bell was attractive. 

I was finally able to use a sketch from the Scrap Your Stash class in October 2019 (about 18 months before I completed this layout!). Though I cannot show you the sketch, I can say that I followed it faithfully though I turned it 90-degrees to accommodate my photos. There are a lot of different pieces here, but luckily they all had the same tones so they worked together well. The background page gave me the "blue" (I don't recall what pack that came from). The red plaid in the middle is from an 8 1/2 x 11 Americana tablet that I bought when I first started scrapbooking. Nice to be able to use it up! The border is from a pack I bought from Our Memories For Life--a spin-off of the old CM company by one of the original founders. I don't have much of their materials because it is honestly difficult to navigate their ordering page, but these borders were a great find. The Liberty Bell photo sticker came from a pack purchased at the INDE visitor center. The cartoon-like sticker and the other random elements came from an older CM Fourth of July kit. It sounds like a lot, but in the end they all pulled together for a fairly straightforward layout.

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.

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.