The Last Stamp Standing

My next park visit happened in October 2018 when I decided to participate in the New Jersey Lighthouse Challenge. This event happens every year on the 2nd weekend in October. The challenge involves visiting 13 different lighthouses and life-saving stations in New Jersey over 2 days. Most of those buildings have nothing to do with the National Park Service (except the last one which I'll show you next week). The lighthouses start along the Delaware River (a fact I hadn't known before starting the challenge) and along the way, the route gets very close to Fort Mott which is a stamping point for the New Jersey Coastal Heritage Trail. However, as their website will tell you: "Since September 30, 2011, as a result of a sunset clause, the National Park Service is no longer the legislative authority to be involved in the management of the Trail. At this time there is no single authority responsible for the management of the trail, although there are legislative efforts to reinstate the NPS as the legislative authority."

While the rest of the sites have relinquished their Passport Stamp, the Fort has not (and as of 2023, still hasn't!) So I decided to make a little detour and visit the Fort, get my stamp, and then finish the lighthouses.

I worked on this album while at a crop. Planning to attend a crop means figuring out what papers to take without taking my entire crop room. I knew that this fort was on the tour so I took military pages. Yet when I got to this layout I didn't really feel the military essence (also it was a single right-hand page given the prior layout). I had also brought my "Fall" themed papers with me and this paper and embellishments are from that group, specifically from the Harvest Delight CM papers (circa 2019).  The layout is loosely based on a sketch or rather one of a series of sketches from Creative Memories. Noreen Smith developed a set of formulas. By cutting one pack of paper (generally 12 double-sided pages for CM) as the formula indicates, you can create an entire album by arranging the strips in various ways. I didn't need to do all of the cuts, I just figured out which strips were used and what the widths were.

The Fort hosts a small museum detailing life during its active years. The large gun below is the correct size but is actually painted on the wall. A few buildings are remaining and some batteries are falling down. As I wanted to keep moving to the lighthouses I didn't spend too much time on site here.

This was a fairly easy layout as it is technically the "Wallpaper" technique. I bought those 2 papers at the Lancaster Scrapbook Convention. The yellow house was blending a bit into the tan background so I matted them on black cardstock. I added a few stickers from the new CM sticker pack "Called to Serve" to add a little more eye movement around the page but this one came together quickly.

It's more than Atlantic City

When most people think of the Jersey Coast, they think of the casinos and not much else. But just inside that commercialized zone is a series of small protected zones like the Pine Barrens and the Maurice River. These were temporarily combined to form the New Jersey Coastal Heritage route--an affiliated unit for the National Park Service. I'm surprised that this was the topic of one of the displays as in reality there is no organizational body overseeing that designation. There is one stamp left in Southern Jersey. However, the areas are protected by private foundations like the various lighthouse agencies. 

The inspiration for this layout was from a class I took and I cannot share the sketch. It was pretty straightforward though--3 pairs of patterned papers cut with the Decorative Trimmer and separated just a bit to create a "river" through the middle. I used more of the Woodland Whimsy papers for this layout as well as a few animal stickers from the pack. It was originally a baby pack so it can be difficult to use some of the titles from the kit. The title across the bottom is a mixture of mini ABC-123 letter packs. The yellow didn't show up well so I outlined them in dark pen. The title isn't SUPPOSED to be another river on the page but I won't argue if you think it matches that layout. I'm just bad at making things straight sometimes!