Saving Grace

One of the buildings that the Ranger showed me was the AME church. Though built in 1885, it has undergone renovation several times, and now the park is trying to restore it to the original interior. They found a panel where people had signed the walls as they worked. They applied plexiglass over the top to preserve it so it remained visible. The other church, which I think was the Baptist church, is still in disrepair and cannot be explored. 

I made this layout as part of a Saturday morning class using a 1-2-3 sketch from Noreen Smith. I cannot share the sketch with you, but it features one of my favorite tricks--fooling the eye into thinking there is more paper on the page. On the right page, you see a square of blue paper under the church photo and sunrise paper. That is a set of 1" strips carefully aligned above and below the sunrise paper! This is one way to save paper--we used just 1 sheet of double-sided paper for the layout. I used this paper from the Keeping the Faith collection. When I measured the first cut, I realized I could preserve the sunrise and cross. In the original sketch, a 4x4 photo was to be placed there. It's a great way to use the photo papers in some of our packs. My final embellishments included border stickers and stickers from the same pack.

A Tale of One City

In the morning, I made my way over to Nicodemus. I started my visit at the Town Hall, the visitor center. This ample space resembles an auditorium, with many tales of the city's inhabitants displayed around the room. There was just one ranger on duty, so I waited until he had time to give me a brief tour of the town. He highlighted 2 buildings and then had to return to the visitor center. They don't get many visitors, so I don't think I kept him from seeing anyone, though I know I wasn't the only one to visit that day. The walking tour brochure does detail the history of the buildings, and it's an easy walk around the town (though it was still chilly for early May).

If this layout looks familiar, I posted it for the Lasting Memories Challenge. For details about the construction and papers, check out this blog post.

I added an 8 1/2 x 11 pocket page between the main pages of the layout. I placed the walking tour brochure and a photo of the crumbling infrastructure on the front. I used a piece of paper from the same pack to create a feeling of continuity as you look at the pages.

On the back side of the pocket, I added 2 more photos of the town (same building but one zoomed in). And to emphasize the forlornness of the site, I added a die cut of a crooked house. It's supposed to be on a Halloween page as a haunted house, but scrapbooking has no rules. I also found an old CM die cut that had some embossing. I used a black marker to ink the embossed areas to make them more visible.

Cover Story

Welcome to Kansas! In the next few weeks, we'll review my trip from May 2021. I had been vaccinated and felt like I needed another getaway (it had been more than 6 months since my last national park trip--that's unheard of for me). However, I still didn't want to go where there were too many people. Nicodemus National Historic Site in Kansas posted on their Facebook Page that they would soon be opening, which seemed remote enough to match my goals. While today's post won't directly include anything from Nicodemus, I wanted to show you the kick-off to the album. 

This is the album's cover page, but I did something more unique. I used 2 of the 6x12 peekaboo pockets for the top. Looking closely, a tab under the barn door latch says "Lift." When you lift that tab, you will see the layout below. The 12x12 base and the 2 peekaboo extensions on either side create a complete 2-page layout! The idea started with that barn door paper. I'd always wanted to incorporate it into a design, but you can't tell what it is if you cover it in photos. I only added the Kansas title I purchased from Paper Wizard for this page. Cutting it in the middle was tricky as it is about 7 layers of different colors. But I managed the feat and was able to attach the 2 sides so that they met evenly on the papers.

The trip started with a flight to Wichita, and I drove to the Schweizer Hotel in Hill City, KS. There are not many hotels in Nicodemus, and this one was inexpensive. I was a little leery over what I would find, but it was similar to staying in my grandmother's house! The furnishings are all vintage but sturdy enough to be livable, not a museum. Indeed, they encouraged me to sit in the front area as if it were my living room. There will be additional pages in the album, but I'm limiting myself to showing these 2 pages since it doesn't really have anything to do with the National Park site. If you are ever in the area, I encourage you to visit and stay the night.

I didn't follow a sketch per se, but I've created pages like this before. The difference is that instead of splitting the middle page across 2 backgrounds, it is solid with 2 wings. The back of the barn door paper (Rustic Manor collection) has a marble look, and I thought that worked with the photos. In contrast, the main page is a light wood tone. I added some rustic rose paper cutouts from a very old tablet. I found a few journal boxes in my stash and 2 matching laser-cut borders for the edges. In the next blog, we'll look at Nicodemus.

Bonus Post--Happy Horizontals

Hello all! I'm posting a bonus entry tonight for a layout I just completed. You'll see more about this trip in a few weeks. In May 2021, I made a trip to Kansas, and one of my visits was to Nicodemus. This historic site commemorates the community founded by freed slaves after the Civil War. It became a rich cultural settlement with banks, schools, theater, all surrounded by a prosperous farming community. Though there were many of these founded, this one is the only one still inhabited. The population is quite small--less than 50 people remain. But they have a reunion once a year, and the descendants all return to celebrate the town.

I created this layout using a 1-2-3 sketch from Noreen Smith. It was from a package I purchased, so I cannot post the sketch, but it did create the horizontal paper strips you see that match the Lasting Memories challenge for this week. The papers are from the Botanical Bliss collection; most have a floral or butterfly print. But I loved this distressed wood with the green dot print on the reverse. I also used a darker background from the same paper pack with a small detail that might be wheat. There were no embellishments with that paper, so I dug through my stash and found a few laser-cut pieces that would provide a little more color to a fairly light page.