50-states album part 3--California

My next entry in the 50-states album is California. Both photos came from the 2014 trip recently posted. Stops included Long Beach, Los Angeles and the Santa Monica Mountains.

This layout was scraplifted from this design. To keep the weight of the page down, I used 1" strips of red cardstock along the edges of the page and then cut the blue dot background paper down to fit the opening. The state shape was created in the same way the Arizona state was, only this time I used a dark tan over a light tan paper. The filmstrip was created using the CM Border Maker cartridge and the state name was cut on the Cricut. The one lonely sticker is a leftover CM Cottage sticker from many years ago. I liked it better than a die-cut though.

Ghost of the Paramount Ranch

My trip through the Santa Monica Mountains included a stop at the Paramount Ranch. Many western movies have been filmed here, so if it looks familiar you may have been there through film. Sadly, between the time of my visit and today's post, the area was engulfed in one of the California wildfires and most buildings were destroyed.

When I arranged my photos, I wanted to keep them all but they would take up most of the page. So I chose background paper that would not "mind" being covered up. The left page looks a bit like leather but has no other pattern. The right page was mostly dark with just a boot and some hay--and that's what's revealed in the arrangement.

Of course the other way to get a lot of photos on the page is to use Peekaboo pockets! I do like the bottom 3 because it makes me feel like I'm on the street again.

The visitor center is WHERE?

I continued my visit in the Santa Monica mountains with a trip to the Satwiwa visitor center. I was a little daunted when I found out the parking area was a bit of a hike from the building. The rattlesnake sign did not encourage me. Still, I made the walk easily and spent some time at the site watching the movie and seeing some of the arts and crafts classes for kids.

The left page of this layout is from the CM Virtual Crop. I used the Explorer and Travel Log packs to create the layout. Since I had a second page, I used the scraps from the left to make long mats on the right. The left border is a sticker. The journal box is a bit of white ruled paper that I enhanced with some stickers.

Here's your sign, Hollywood

Another group of stops we made was to visitor centers in the foothills of the Santa Monica mountains. Those photos are on the right but I made them part of a double-page layout so you also get to see the Hollywood sign. It was a real challenge to find a spot to take my photo (bottom) so I added a postcard of the sign for good measure.

This layout is another challenge from the CM virtual crop. You can see the sketch on this page. I used paper from the Travel Log pack (paper, stickers, and mats). It makes it so easy to coordinate the items as the kits have a mix of matching tones.  Once I choose the elements, the page comes together fairly quickly.