This is Us

Welcome back to my New York blizzard trip in March 2022. Remember that we are visiting the Seward house (of Seward's Folly fame). The next space we visited was a large drawing room or living room. Off to one side was a massive world globe. Mr. Seward was a world traveler, so there are many Asian pieces on display as well. And more books! As if the library wasn't big enough. (Though are they ever?) 

This layout is based on the June 2026 CM Virtual Crop (Scroll to layout #3). I searched through my Heritage papers and, though not a religious topic, chose the Keeping the Faith collection. There were the perfect brown and slate papers that matched the photos' tone. I found one laser-cut border for the bottom of the left page. The problem of having only one was compounded by the fact that it was only available in brown. A brown color on the right would not have worked, as it would just blend in with the paper. Punches to the rescue! This Diamond Lattice punch was very similar in design, and I could use it to punch the slate paper remnant on the left page. The 4x6 card on the right side is from the Homestead collection, but that blue was a good match, and it fit the design perfectly. A few smaller embellishments from my stash completed the look.

Book it

Happy Friday, everyone. I'm going to temporarily change the blog posting frequency. As I have some personal issues to work around and not a large supply of completed National Park pages, I'm going to return to weekly posts on Fridays starting today. Hopefully, in a few months, I'll be able to resume more frequent posting. Thanks for understanding.

Welcome back to the Harriet Tubman meetup in March 2022. In this post, we look at the Seward family library. I thought the ceiling light fixture had the most interesting design. It sort of reminds me of the figureheads you find on old sailing ships. And look at all those books! I'm not repeating photos there — each one is on a separate wall. I could get lost in here easily.

This layout is designed from the CM Virtual Crop for May 2026. Scroll to sketch #4. The creator of the sketch said it was a good way to display all the different papers in a single pack. It's also a great way to use up scraps of a pack! The squares at the top are great display boxes for stickers, letters to make a title, or just another place to display the lovely patterns. I didn't have enough small photos for the bottom row (you COULD fit 10 photos in this layout!). Instead, I made each row's center a black cardstock box. One became a journal box, and one became a title location. Each has a set of photo corner stickers to add a bit more interest. And with that, I finished up another pack of paper--Our Moments. 

What Folly

Welcome back to the Harriet Tubman meetup in Auburn, NY, March 2022. While in the area, Melania, Allan, and I decided to tour the William Henry Seward House. That name might not mean much on its own, but he served as Secretary of State under Abraham Lincoln and was responsible for purchasing the land that became the state of Alaska. (Remember Seward's Folly now?) He was a good friend to Harriet Tubman, and both he and his wife used this house as part of the Underground Railroad. There was a time when getting over the Mason-Dixon line was not secure enough--runaway enslaved people needed to get to Canada for true freedom. His house includes many of his personal belongings and notes. You can see the entry, parlor, and front staircase below, along with a desk he was given. It had served for one of the signatories of the New York State Constitution.

This layout may look unusual. The left side is the back of an 8 1/2 x 11 pocket page. The front of that pocket holds my Junior Ranger booklet for the Underground Railroad (I completed that at the birthday party in the visitor center). The design for that side is loosely based on one of Noreen Smith's formulas for the CM Journal-size album (see layout #3).

The right side of the page is based on the CM Virtual Crop sketch from December 2025 (scroll to sketch #2). For the paper, I used an Advisor-only pack called Welcoming Woodblock Prints. Those papers came with matching embellishments, and the pack includes a 4x4 card. I fussy-cut the title cluster from the card so that it fit in the space better.

End of the Line

Our tour stepped into an alley next to the courthouse--one I never realized existed! We heard stories of the free blacks who were entrepreneurs in the area. I took some time to marvel at the architecture of the courthouse but that wasn't a part of the tour's discussion.

This page is based on a CM Sketch from the August 2021 virtual crop. I did not include the circle in the upper right corner but did combine 2 sheets of paper and a border sticker to decorate the page. If you open the CM page you'll see that you can also take this sketch in a "fancier" direction if you want to. I used a very subdued palette as well as a touch on the page due to the theme.

We stopped at another cemetery. There were monuments to people extending over several hundred years. I enjoy cemetery art so photographed some of the monuments that really have nothing to do with the UGRR experience. 

This layout is from a sketch from another blogger that I follow--Cheryl Even. She makes sketches for her albums and posts them for others to use, so she's one of my inspirations. She also posts on the Scrapbook.com forums and I've followed her on there for a time. I turned the sketch so that the paper remnants (and this page is REALLY scrap booking) were across the top. I used a remnant of a sticker across the bottom and a few random sticker embellishments as well.

The last stop on our tour was most unusual--it was in the parking garage entryway. This building was originally a train depot and was a transition place for those moving on toward Canada on the UGRR.

This page is one half of a layout I made in a Paper Loft class. The kit had many mats included and we arranged them across the middle of the page. I thought the "Unexpected Directions" title was perfect given the odd location for the talk. The 2 blue squares on the right were to be for photos, but I chose to use them as journal boxes. Again, not much other decoration on the page given the theme.

Above Ground on the UGRR

Our tour group assembled and we started walking down the hill away from the square. Our first stop is the Thaddeus Stevens house (he helped ensure the passage of the Emancipation Proclamation). This is preserved in the middle of the Lancaster Convention center. The original door and markers are on the outside. We didn't get to go in. Around the corner, you can see the excavated cisterns. They believe they were used not for water, but to hide enslaved people on the UGRR.

This layout is based on a layout that CM posted using Countryside Comfort (the first layout on the page). I did not have the exact paper pack but found that the Croptoberfest papers from that year worked just as well. I did not originally save this design to my Pinterest board though. I saved the borders on the layout below. But as that didn't work with this configuration of photos, I scrolled up the page and realized that the fence would be a perfect addition to this home story. 

Another stop on our tour was a church that I had passed every day going from work to home. This church allowed enslaved people to worship with the rest of the congregation and for the times, that was quite progressive. Numerous historical markers adorn the church walls.

This page lent itself to the original borders that I saved (second on the page from the link above). The tones of the Croptoberfest paper match the brick quite well and the rest of the colors accent the deep red tones. While there is a third layout on the CM site, I'm not sure I have enough materials left to complete it. However, it's saved on Pinterest so there's always a possibility!

Hometown Tourist

I hope you all had a great Thanksgiving! I want to say how thankful I am that you read my blog. If you have any comments or suggestions, please drop me a line!

I know a couple of ladies from the Park Travelers Club that live close to me so we decided to have an outing together and chose a walking tour of Lancaster focusing on the Underground Railroad. Before we got started I took the opportunity to photograph some places I've been to frequently such as the Penn Square statue of soldiers and the Central Market. 

This page was a kit from Scrapbook Concierge. It's another example of pages that I am glad to have completed, and that I will NEVER do again. It took a while to figure out which photos would easily (not sure that's the right adjective but we'll stick with it for now) morph into the letters in "Lancaster". It took quite a while to fussy cut and apply the photos to the letters. I did get lucky in that one photo could spread across up to 2 letters if positioned correctly.