A Very Special Trip to Washington DC

 In May 2017, Jim and I heard that Ken Burns was going to be the speaker at an event held at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. We enjoyed many of his documentaries so we made a memorable trip to see him and were able to get tickets to the public section of the audience. The trip started with the Metro ride to the US  Navy Memorial. We walked along the mall to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial and passed a few sites. I enjoyed seeing the Navy practice for their part in the parade that afternoon.

This layout is a Project Recipe from Creative Memories made specifically for this paper pack--Festive Fourth. I taught a class to my customers. There is a recipe available for just about every new pack of paper. If you would like a copy of the recipe, let me know through email!

I never knew that the Memorial Wall could be edited. This occasion (which I believe happens every year on Memorial Day) honors any newly identified remains (adding names to the wall) and changing some of the icons from "Missing" to "Killed in Action". 

The left page is wallpaper using one of several pages I have for "Memorial Day". While I don't have a lot of events specific to that day, the reverse side is more "generically patriotic" and I will likely use it for similar events. The right page is an 8 1/2x11 pocket page. You'll see in the next photo that I included the program from the day. For this side, I added our tickets (one showing each side) as well as the journaling. The background paper here is an 8 1/2 x 11 sheet from my stash. Nice to be able to use those up.

The ceremony was beautiful. Not only did we hear from Ken Burns and his partner Lynn Novick, but there were moving presentations by family members, and the honor guards. When the ceremony was over we walked back to the Metro station. That route was along the parade route for the DC Memorial Day parade and we dawdled enough to enjoy many of the performances, marching bands and the veterans celebrated through floats and honor cars. Those pages are available in the full album if you want to see them!

The left page is the other side of the pocket and the other side of the 8 1/2 x 11 paper. I couldn't have asked for better wallpaper there! The right side page I made at a crop. The lesson was to make the "crazy circles" along the bottom. This paper is from a Fresh Fusion pack. I cut 3 circles from different papers and stacked them, then made some "crazy cuts". You rearrange the segments to get the mish-mash effect. Those also could have been places to highlight other photos, memorabilia, or embellishments. 

Obscure Monuments Tour part 1--Mall Time Again

 In November 2016 I made a trip down to DC again. I traveled after my Saturday morning Zumba class (which is why I look frazzled in the photo). Since there is a meetup planned for Sunday morning I thought I would stay overnight, and if I was going to do that well then maybe I should visit some DC sites on Saturday. I found a Ranger Talk for Saturday afternoon focused on "Obscure Monuments". I thought that would be an excellent way to see something new and I signed up for it. After getting off the metro I took a moment to post a quick selfie on Facebook with the Washington Monument in the background.

This layout is based on one of my October class sketches. I used the Hello Autumn papers mostly because I was there in the fall. I added 2 embellishments from the Eastern National scrapbook packs. The Greetings tag is from the DC pack and the Monument sticker is from their regular pack. Perfect accompaniments to the page. Also detailed enough that I didn't need to layer additional stickers or embellishments with them.

I made my usual stop at the World War II memorial. There were a couple of re-enactors but I didn't get a chance to talk to them at all. I did see the plaque to Bob Dole for the first time so I snapped a photo of it.

The left page of the layout is a simple wallpaper technique. The paper is from Scrapbook Customs and I just had to throw a couple of photos on it to introduce the memorial. The right page is another sketch from my October class. The red and yellow border on the right was leftover from a page I had made about Russian Migs. The re-enactors spurred my design--I wanted the red/browns to match their uniforms. The red photo mat is a scrap from a very old patriotic 8 1/2 x 11 pad. I tied the 2 together with the blue star paper from the Americana pack (I think I've used that on EVERY layout featuring WWII due to the fountain). My sticker clusters were from a Revolutionary War pack (the eagle and "Proud") and from a military pack.

While at the monument I focused on the fountain. Luckily it was November and no one was swimming in it (which people do even though there is a sign asking people to refrain). I had some fun getting photos of the water including the reflecting pool with the Lincoln Monument.

This layout was made for one of the pajama party events from Creative Life Scrapbooking. The triangles across the top should be straighter and had I drawn a line across the page in pencil it might not slope up. Still, the angle is fairly slight. The papers were all from blue-toned paper packs to reflect the water scenes. The embellishments were from "Picture This" which not only matches the blue theme, it captures the spirit that I was playing with photography. 

On the Mall

After lunch, I stuck around to take a tour of the tidal basin. As we passed the NPS Information booth on the mall, we were disappointed that it wasn't staffed and the stamps were locked away from us! I stopped for a moment to take my photo with the Washington Monument. It was being renovated during my visit so I was unable to go to the top.

This page is a leftover sketch from a summer camp. The main idea was to do some stitching. While the class leader advocated using real thread, I stuck with faux stitching. I outlined the banner by holding a ruler against the edge and dotting every other block along the path. Then I free-handed the cross-stitch look along the bottom. I used a bit of my non-CM stash here. The background paper was just shy of 12x12 and I don't know if I bought it that way or if I trimmed it previously. I layered with the grid paper so I could do my stitching and then cut a scrap of light blue for the banner. I used some star and heart stickers from various sticker packs. The title is from a Paper House sticker sheet. Does that make too many monuments? (2 photos and a sticker). I don't think so!

As I usually do, I visited the WWII memorial briefly. I managed to find someone to take my photo with one of the title pillars but strolled along the outside mostly. 

I bought this kit from Scrapbook Concierge. They create elaborate layouts that you buy as a kit and assemble at home. They look straightforward, but I always end up looking at some pieces and saying "What do I do with this?" For this kit it was the small gray rectangles. It turned out they were to create shadows on the pillars around the reflecting pool. I really had to concentrate on aligning them from smallest to largest and matching the left and right sides. While I like their layouts they don't leave a lot of room for photos, though I was able to add one more by covering some of those pillars. I don't always use the photo corners provided but I did like them here. I used one photo spot as a journal box so I was able to get all the components I wanted included.

The Spoils of War

My visit to Arlington Cemetery was to visit a new NPS unit for me. Arlington House was the family home of Robert E. Lee. Because he chose to fight for the Confederacy during the civil war, the government confiscated his property and began burying Union soldiers in the yard (the start of the National Cemetery). Eventually the house was restored to its 18th/19th century form and outfitted with family pieces. Robert E. Lee's wife was a descendant of George Washington's wife Martha Custis and so there are quite a few nods to the Washington line in the house as well.

This is another example of making the right side first. I scraplifted the right side from this page which features the Archivers paper and borders from CM (now retired). I thought the roses were a good fit for the home and so on the left I chose the rose paper borders for the top and bottom with the same background paper. The die cut on the left is from the Eastern national DC scrapbook kit

Even though a government shutdown was happening I could still tour just about the entire house and so I made my way down to the basement kitchen. I also toured the slave quarters behind the house.

This is wallpaper with a wood paper from the CM Timber pack. I matted the photos  with a piece of brown burlap from the Cloth pack (both now retired). The kitchen tools across the top is from a previous release of an 8x8 recipe book. I use the papers and elements on my 12x12 pages.

After leaving Arlington I took the bus back to the Mall area and stopped at the largest cache of passport stampers in the city--the bookstore near the Washington monument.

This ended my tour in DC for this trip. I chose to use a wallpaper page featuring cherry blossoms as that was the original purpose of my trip, even though I never saw any. I did grab a quick photo of the Washington Monument still under renovation from the earthquake.

Along the Mall

My next page is just a few random monuments that I went by on my way back to the Metro. The top left photo is John Paul Jones whose statue is in a very busy traffic island. To the right is the World War Memorial for DC and of course the bottom is the Washington Monument. I liked the sunset look here too. In fact, it is probably just me turning 180-degrees from my picture of the Lincoln Memorial in the WWII reflecting pool.

The page was created from this challenge on the Creative Memories Blog. Although I didn't participate in that virtual crop, I do save all the ideas in my Pinterest folder and often come back to do them later. I liked the easy way I created the background. This actually allowed me to use some of my 8 1/2 x 11" paper because I could cut off strips and layer them into a "V" on the page. Once the pieces were in place, I trimmed off the excess at the edges. The title is a die cut from the Eastern National scrapbook pack. Then I just had to mount the photos and journal and it was done!

This ends my DC trip, but next week I will highlight a trip to Wisconsin!

No foolin--this was a trip to the mall!

Well, I just couldn't pass up the pun so I am adding a 2nd installment this weekend in honor of April Fools Day. This layout is another example of a trip to the National Mall which isn't really about the park as much as it is a special event held there. But, there is a photo of the Washington Monument, so I'm going to count it as a park visit.

I found out about the National Book festival because my favorite author, Diana Gabaldon was there to do a reading and sign copies of her new novel "A Breath of Snow and Ashes". Jim and I also got to listen to David McCullough. It was just a day trip, but we made the most of it.

I hesitate to call this layout "wallpaper" technique. The cardstock from Creative Memories was 10x12 (at the time) so they don't really cover the page. I ended up taking a contrasting sheet and using it to cover the open middle. If you look closely you'll notice the torn edges. I don't think I had a tearing tool at the time, it was just a hand rip. The maroon and green color scheme comes from the brochure for the festival, and coordinates nicely with the photos.

The top left and bottom right corners come from a border making class I took once. It was really difficult to keep all those individual strips together so if you look REALLY closely you will probably see the adhesive showing through some of the gaps. Between that and the stickers though, I was able to keep this intact until it found a place on my pages. It has a fall sort of feel to me, so it works pretty well on the layout.

Another trip to Washington D.C.

Well, I'm on my 2nd snow day thanks to Winter Storm Stella so I thought I'd post another entry. Today I highlight a trip my husband and I made to DC, or at least the NPS portion of it. I am not including a stop we made to the US Postal museum or the Supreme Court because they aren't an official unit of the National Park Service. So if you want to see those pages, you'll have to stop by sometime!

We visited the brand new World War II Memorial just a few days before the official opening ceremony. This was a great visit and especially important to me as my grandfather served in the Army Air Corps during the war as a flight mechanic. I was especially moved by the wall of stars.

I did not digitally merge my photos of the wall of stars, I just took sequential pictures. (My camera does have an option to allow me to line up the pictures but it isn't perfect). I ended up cutting the middle section in half and spreading the image across 2 pages which I really like. I also included photos of the Atlantic operations memorial as that is where my grandfather served. The red, white and blue theme was a sure-fire win but it's still got a lot of blank areas (and that isn't really intentional dead space).

Our walk around town included a stop at the Old Post Office Tower and we went up to take a look and get the stamp.

Here is another lesson in what to do with 8 1/2 x 11 paper in a 12x12 scrapbook. Cut it into strips and spread it across the page! I actually own a template which sizes the strips appropriately but you can work with just about any size that is effective. On the right is a Creative Memories pocket page. I used that to include the unigrids for the various parks. I only put the name of the city at the top, but I probably could add some decoration to the page as well.

Here is the other side of the pocket page and the beginning of our special Mall experience. You'll notice that the letters I chose for the title are all different shades. It was my attempt to not have to manufacture letters. One problem with sticker sheets is that there are limited letters and once you spell out your first title you are sometimes stuck missing a key vowel to complete the second or third use. I actually like the effect as it becomes sort of an ombre look and goes well with the "wallpaper" I chose to mount the photos.

We were in town for several days as I was there for a conference, so we had evenings and then the weekend to explore the city. It was our second visit to the Mall when we discovered that to enhance the WWII memorial opening, they held an encampment of WWII memorabilia, reenactments, and displays. The stickers used on this page actually came from one of the displays at the event. I carried the green theme through from the prior page but just as accents along the borders. There was quite a bit of green from the grass and vehicles though so not much more was required.

It's nice to know that you can return to a park and see it in a different way over and over again.

A couple of "firsts"

I have researched my scrapbooks and my first page of a National Park visit is this 2-page layout to Gettysburg in 1988. My Uncle Larry and his family came to visit from Texas, and we took a family trip. This is not my first ever visit to a national park--I know that my family took a trip to DC in 1976, but I don't seem to have any photos of that trip.

What I like about this layout is the fence I created out of paper strips. I also like the ivy letters (and I think I still have a few to use). I do wish that I had been better at placing the letters in a straight line though. Like many layouts from this era (and I'm guessing I created this around 2000-2002) there is a lot of white on the page. I think I could have put a little more paper behind the photos. But overall the composition is pleasing.

A couple of pages later, I found this layout from a trip to DC (which I am including here in order to tie in my first visit to any national park). My brother and I went specifically to see something at the art museum though I don't remember what. We also walked over to see the Vietnam Veterans Memorial and I remember buying a poster of the wall. We parked outside the city and rode the Red Line from Shady Grove. I still remember the sound of the conductor reciting "This is the Red Line to Shady Grove" on the way back to the car. I wish I could record that sound here--probably the one drawback to scrapbooking.

The technique I used here is called "Between the Lines". I created a double border with design lines top and bottom and then filled the middle with small decorative stickers. The title sticker worked well for this technique and then I matched the stars and stripes along the bottom. This may be the first use of the footprint path, but definitely will not be the last.

Overall I like this page though again I think I could have used more paper under the photos.

So that's my first entry. Stay tuned to see how my scrapbooking progresses!