That's Wild!

We finish up the trip to Minnesota with a few pages of the Coon Rapids Dam which is a little farther north of the city. On the west shore (where I started) the stamp is located at the nature center and I spent a little time observing the goldfinches and other birds from the giant picture windows. 

I made this layout for my 2023 summer class that I'm taking with Meggan Jacks and Tessa Chapple. This was a kick-off crop and they shared this idea for blocks and small photos. This worked out well because the birds didn't take up much of the photo space so I could crop them to about 3" square to fit the blocks. I left one large photo for emphasis. The paper is an Old CM kit. I thought the pastel colors were a good backdrop for the photos. The embellishments were from a different pack but they matched the colors well and had the Springtime sentiments I was looking for.

I was able to cross the river here (the motivation is that there is a stamp on the OTHER side so....) On my journey across I saw 2 unique things. First is this duck with a blue bill. I thought I was seeing things but this was real! It turns out to be called a Ruddy Duck. It was the only one I saw in the group.

I made this layout for the June 2023 CM Virtual Crop. Scroll to Challenge #1 to see the sketch. I decided to make my Ruddy Duck the focus of the page so I chose a blue and orange set of papers that would match his coloring. The scalloped orange is from a pack of decorative cardstock that Old CM released. I had just found the pack at a scrapbook yard sale so the timing was perfect! I know that the stickers are geese and not ducks (did you just go and see that for yourself?) You'll notice that I "turned" the sketch. But as a square, it's so symmetrical that it doesn't really matter which way the photos go, though it does look better if they are facing the same direction.

My last set of photos is more about the dam (and you can see the walkway as it stretches across the Mississippi). Flowing water not only makes for good photos, but it's also just beautiful to watch! As I walked across, I noticed a snag that created some additional interest in the water patterns. But I was also amazed that it didn't move! You would think that the power of the water would push it over the edge, but it didn't! 

This layout was the OTHER kick-off crop sketch from the summer class I mentioned above. I used the final scraps from the Deep Blue paper. I liked that the laser border could be turned vertically and mirror the falling water. Because the 6x4 photos do not need to be trimmed, this layout came together very quickly. I substituted one of the 4x3 photos for a journal box. This was the last page of the album. It is actually 1/2 of the sketch. The right page would be turned 90 degrees for vertical photos with the smaller photos at the bottom. But this was all I needed and it worked perfectly!

Outside Mill City

 These photos are from the top viewing platform of the Mill City museum. Again, you can see the scorch marks from previous fires and the remnants of the original building walls. Nearby is the St. Anthony's Lock and Dam. I took photos from here but it's closed in the winter (April is still winter--see previous posts) so I didn't bother going to the visitor center.

This layout was made for the CM virtual Crop in June 2023. Look at this page and scroll to layout #4. I liked this layout because the wavy papers in the middle reminded me of the river. that's why I chose a peach color for the edges and blue in the middle (look closely, that blue paper ALSO has a wavy pattern running through it! I added a few stickers from the Travel Log collection and a couple from a very OLD CM travel pack. I used up a couple of photo corners as well to highlight a few photos (2 corners each).

Inside Mill City

My next visit in Minneapolis was to the Mill City Museum. This location hosts a Mississippi NRRA stamp as it backs up to St. Anthony Lock and Dam. For a long time, this area had been THE center for flour milling in the US, partly because of the massive water power coming off the river. For that reason, I'm including a tour of the inside of the building. There is an interesting movie about the area which feels sort of like you are in an elevator and you move floor to floor. In reality, I think the dioramas and movie screens move up and down. On the main floor are some excellent exhibits about flour from harvesting to processing to baking. Love the giant box of Bisquick!

This layout is based on a CM Virtual Crop from October 2021. I used a paper pack called Baked with Love which was free to my customers if they spent $250 with me. CM now includes some sort of embellishment--either tags, stickers or die-cuts--with the free packs. They change each quarter. I made this while away at my weekend crop and it was a good thing I had these on hand as I had forgotten to bring my folder of food scrapbook items. 

This is part of the exhibit focused on the milling process. You can see one of the grinding heads on the right page as well as grain elevators. 

This layout is somewhat based on the May 2023 CM Virtual Crop sketch #4. This month CM focused on Fast-to-Fabulous pages so all 4 sketches were double-page layouts. Again, I was at the crop house so I needed to use what I brought and the best choice turned out to be papers from 2 different kits. On the left, I had previously cut a circle from the Picture Perfect travel kit (a special kit from a few years ago). I backed that with some paper scraps. On the right is a SUPER old CM page from when they first introduced the concept of pre-printed layouts. However, there was a strip of foreign clocks. So turning to the sketch, I Covered those and any gaps on the far left with 2 strips of coordinating paper (also scraps). I did twist a photo as suggested in the sketch on the left. I replaced 2 photos with larger embellishments on the right (camera die-cut and an arrow tag). Using the title die-cut completed my paper pack! Feels so good to use up stock!

The most interesting part of the tour was finding out that one problem with milling flour is that it is flammable! And there were many fires over the years. One in particular burned not only its own mill but 3 or 4 nearby ones. You can still see the scorch marks on the walls!

This is a layout I made for a class I took and I cannot show you the sketch. The left side was to be a flower so I tried to take the technique and make it look like the explosion described above (and on the layout). The small "v" looking bits are remnants of a punch (punch poop as some say) and I was trying to make it look like flour was flying through the air. I had some paper from the fireman kit so I was able to introduce flames and the fireman's helmet and badge. It's not my best work but I think it is effective in telling the story.

Let's Just Go To The Lobby

Another stamping stop is the Mississippi River Visitor Center which is inside a museum in Minneapolis. Luckily you do not need to buy admission to the museum to get to the visitor center. It's a small space with a little bit of information about the river. There is a cool green screen to create a postcard image of yourself at the visitor center where you can choose the background. Given the snow of this week, I chose the winter photo. Outside the museum you can see a bit of the river but there are more interesting views to come!

This layout is based on the August 2022 Power Hour layout from Meggan and Tessa. I used the Ice Blue tonal pack from Creative Memories. They issue a new Tonal collection each quarter and they are quite handy for completing pages that don't necessarily have an obvious theme. The pack had a print that reminded me of a river and the river border punch helped carry that theme across the pages. The matching stickers for the tonal collections are somewhat generic but I was able to find several word stickers that matched the layout. I used one photo spot for a journaling box pulled from a winter collection with the same tones. The other benefit of the tonal collection is that it matches our design papers so you can extend the use of those kits!

Oh the Things I Will do for a Stamp--Part 3

My next trip was in April 2018 to the HPN conference in Minnesota. After I was done with the conference I stayed and saw a little of Minneapolis. My first stop was Fort Snelling but just for a stamp. I drove up the river to Coldwater Spring. I did not walk out to the spring house as it was a cold day (if you see the full album you'll know that even in April it can snow in Minnesota!) I was quite interested to see the stamp that is accessed from behind the sign and only by entering the secret code! (found on the NPTC database of course). It took me a while to find the appropriate sign but I did, and I entered the code and got the stamp! I didn't have ink (if you try this you really should bring your own) so I used some snow to wet the bottom of the stamper and got enough residual ink to stamp my book!

I based this layout on a pinned sketch. I used more papers from the Outdoor packs but while I like this overall, there are a few changes I would make. First, the title at the bottom right should have been trimmed from both the top and bottom so it didn't look like it was falling off the page. Next, I would have done a little something else with the border that runs through the middle. It's mostly covered up. I probably could have made it go OVER the photo on the bottom left. I do like that I cut a ring from white cardstock to highlight where the lock box is on the photo--a great way to draw the eye. And I like my use of a few random stickers and embellishments from Gallivant (a collection that is almost used up).

50-states part 12--Minnesota

For my next state, I highlight a trip to the Health Professions Network conference. Frankly, they are the reason I've been to so many states. They have 2 meetings a year and they are always someplace new. The hotel I stayed at faced the Mayo Clinic and it was a highlight of my visit. I wanted to throw a National Park Unit in as well so I included my photo from the Mississippi NRRA visitor center. It's really me against a green screen, but trust me--the snow was appropriate, even though I visited in April!

I based this page on this Pinterest Layout. It's not your traditional state visit page but as I noted above, I really enjoyed seeing the Mayo Clinic. So I looked through my medical pages and came up with this. I replaced the journaling with the state cut out a bit, but also threw in some medical cuts from the Cricut machine.