Exploring the Outdoors

As I mentioned in the last post, I didn't tour the house. I did get a couple of shots of the outside and of course, I had to get a selfie with the sign. That summed up this visit. You'll see why I chose such a short stop. I would visit 3 National Park units in one day. Next stop--Charles Young Buffalo Soldier.

This layout is based on a sketch from the March 24 Virtual Crop. I used papers that I had also used on another layout during the crop I was at when I created this. The base cardstock is Mustard Yellow as it was the closest I could find to the house color. You see that there are red accents on the house, so I chose red from Paper Loft. The torn piece at the bottom is also from Paper Loft. I had torn the top and bottom for the other layout so I had a middle section with 2 tears. It was shorter than called for in the sketch, but I just mounted it a bit further up on the page and allowed the photos to bleed down onto the cardstock. the title stickers and enamel dots came from my stash (CM) but seemed to match well. The journaling is on the left page (last post).

A Pop Of Pink

I finished my conference time in Cincinnati, and since I was in town I decided to refresh my stamps at Taft. I didn't take the tour but I did watch the video in the visitor center. I was early (the visitor center hadn't opened yet) so I wandered the grounds. Luckily the timing was right for me to see a cherry tree with lovely blossoms. I hadn't known that it was his wife who helped bring the cherry trees to the tidal basin in DC. 

I based this layout on a CM Virtual Crop challenge from March 2022. The sketch linked back to a layout that CM had posted and the bonus of that is the original page had measurements. Not that I HAVE to have measurements when I put layouts together, but I don't know that I would have noticed the use of the petals along the bottom where the banners are featured on the sketch. And those petals are things I wanted to use out of my stash (as I really don't do many floral pages). The original page uses yellow from the Botanical Burst collection. I chose the pink for the cherry trees. The papers are not exactly the same designs but I think I chose the ones that worked best for the layout. 

Summer Road Trip part 10--The Big Man (in more ways than one)

I am going to skip a significant chunk of pages here. Between the Blue Ridge Parkway and today's William Howard Taft National Historic Site entry, I made 2 significant stops. First, I stopped at the Beckley Mine in West Virginia. There were many pages on the mine and the mining village and a lot of reminiscing as it is very similar to the area where I grew up. But the NPS link is small- part of a heritage trail- so to keep progressing through my pages, I'll pass for now. If I get caught up and need more, I can always add it later. Next, my journey took me to Louisville for a Health Professions Network conference. While we did a lot of touring, none of it was related to the NPS. So nearly a week later, we pick up with my journey home.

After leaving Louisville I headed north to Ohio and visited the Taft site. As I said in the title--he was a big man. Not only in size but in accomplishments. He is the only man to hold both the presidency and supreme court justice roles. The house tour was quite interesting and full of a lot of artifacts from his various roles. I was impressed that he also spent time in the Philippines as I did. The chair below is from his visit there.

I did take many more photos than these. However, I was getting to the end of the album and worried I wouldn't have enough room for everything. I chose just a few objects and the seals from the entry (well 3 of the 6 that he had) and decided on just one double-page layout. When I put all the photos together I realized how fancy they seemed. I had earned a free pack of blue and gold papers with some beautiful foiled detail and I wanted to use them for this layout. I made this as part of my February 2022 Scrap Your Stash class with Noreen Smith. The sketch called for six small photos --3 on each page I had originally considered using all 6 emblems but decided to substitute the 3 on the left for the unigrid. By using papers from one pack, they coordinate easily so mixing 4 patterns was simple. Just choose different sizes of patterns (tonal for underneath and the 2nd strip, small print for the top, and larger print as the 3rd strip). The journal box and title sticker are also from that collection and felt "presidential" to me.

50-states Album Part 18--Ohio

This post highlights a trip from last year in which I made an effort to get photos of myself as I did my travels. I was returning from an HPN conference in Cincinnati. While I had been to the Taft park unit previously, I had no photos of my visit which included ME. Hopewell Culture was a new park for me. Ironically I SHOULD be returning from this year's HPN conference except that with COVID-19 we held it electronically and I stayed home.

This isn't the most updated photo of this page. I took the photo and posted it to a Facebook group where we share scrapbook layouts and someone commented that I was missing something from Ohio University--a Buckeye. So I searched the internet and managed to find a cut file and made their mascot from cardstock. It's just above the state image.

The page idea came from this layout idea. I only used the left-side ideas. Cutting the state flag and shape turned out to be relatively easy. The lettering on the state is from a plastic template I have with an alphabet. I've used it a few times, and it makes a nice title.