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.

Back to Petersburg

My early trips show a very limited exposure to the various parks in the system don't they? Well, at this point even though I had purchased the passport book I hadn't yet found the National Park Travelers Club (NPTC). So this visit is a return to Petersburg. That isn't too surprising because I mentioned our previous visit was for Jim to get ideas for a book. This time the book is in full production and he arranged to spend time in the archives as well as tour the battlefield and Crater sites.

Very little technique on these pages, but I've tried to add some ivy as a nod to the heritage/historical aspects of the place. Not sure the "Remember When" sticker is enough of a title and there is plenty of space to put one on the left upper corner. The journal mat is an odd choice. Perhaps I didn't notice the swirls in the background as I journaled.

The photo mats show some promise as I purposely arranged them to get the most of the NPS arrowhead paper around the edge. The kit is available at many gift shops and online at the Eastern National store. Unfortunately it includes 8 1/2 x 11 paper, not 12x12.

So this is the first lesson in what to do with non-12x12 paper--use it for photo mats!

Scrapbooking without pictures

This page is a one-page layout of a trip Jim and I made to Cape Lookout. Or more precisely, Harker's Island which is where the visitor center is for the lighthouse. You have to take a ferry to the lighthouse which we didn't feel like doing that day. We just looked through the view finder lenses. We had visited the lighthouse previously during a boat trip. It landed us on the beach side of the island where we swam and looked for shells. That was of course prior to my learning about the stamps. I remember the visitor center at Harker's Island was not that impressive but I did buy a postcard and that and the unigrid became the focus of the page.

This turned out to be a very simple layout but I got lucky by having the large and small diamond border stickers. They perfectly matched the design on the light house, and really that's all that was needed. Looks like I used another photo holder for the unigrid and if I get a chance I will probably replace it. Just remember, it's about the story (journaling) so don't worry if you only have memorabilia to make a page!

My First Little Blue Book

My next entry is a single page from Independence. I took my Surgical Technology class to Philadelphia to see the Mutter Museum. After the museum I walked down to Independence National Historical Park and was able to see the Liberty Bell. If you examine the photos closely you'll see that the space between the visitor center and Independence Hall is rather undeveloped. The Liberty Bell is off to the side in a small building and there was no museum of information--just the bell. The grass isn't even mowed much in the park space.

But what is most important about this trip is this is when I finally decided to purchase the National Parks Passport and I got my first stamp. Just one. I also bought the sticker pack and thought that I was supposed to stamp across the sticker so it's really hard to read the bottom. I quickly deduced that was a mistake and haven't done it since :)

Here is that first stamp:

I like the border I made though my spacing is a bit off. That is a pack of stickers available at the Visitor Center gift shop and I think they help balance out my photographic inabilities. I think at the time that I was convinced I didn't need photo mats but looking back I think they would have helped the page a bit.

The First Layout with a Unigrid

My next recorded visit is a double page about Fort Sumter. Jim and I traveled to Charleston, SC for a conference and took a bit of time to site see before returning home. This is one of the places I distinctly remember picking up the little blue passport book, and putting it down again without buying it.

What is this "Unigrid" I mention in the title? It's the brochure on the bottom right page. When opened there is information on the park and often a map of the unit.

There are not a lot of photos in this layout, but the key ones are there: 1) photos of us with the sign, and 2) cannons. I used more of a "patriotic" feel with this layout as Civil War materials are hard to come by. The borders are part of a tablet of borders that I bought and have a red background with white stars. The 2 photo mats I chose are from a calendar that my sister-in-law gave me for Christmas. Each day was a mat and many of them have additional art in the middle under the photo.

I probably could have matted the photo of Jim since it's the only thing not touching paper. I'm not crazy about the sleeve for the unigrid--it's open on both ends so I think it could easily fall out. Unfortunately my favorite storage for those have been discontinued and I'm afraid if I take the photo sleeve off the page I'll end up with damage.

The First Double Double

My next set of National Park layouts is this pair of pairs from Petersburg. Jim and I were at the end of a very long drive back from Atlanta where we stopped at a variety of military museums. This was mostly a "Jim" trip, but don't worry I get back at him later. 😁

I wonder where I got that Civil War paper. This is something that I'm going to struggle with a LOT as there are many Civil War era national park units and a shortage of papers and stickers for that theme.

So obviously the left page is "wallpaper" technique. The right side is a bit bare. I should have matted some of the photos I think. Or perhaps used a split page for that one piece of Civil War themed paper.

Here is the 2nd set of layout pages. What is a bit unusual is that the "Title" ends up on the 2nd of the 2 layouts. I think that is because this was the real focus of our visit. Jim is planning to write about the Crater and this will provide some background for his book.

I rather like the alternating square border on the right and that I seem to have coordinated colors a bit better, pulling the red/brown from the left photo and using that to mat photos and choose the squares.  In this phase of my scrapbooking history I'm using the "natural" colored pages from Creative Memories and it does seem to deaden the title letters. Perhaps I should outline them with a dark marker.

A slight retraction

As I continue through my scrapbooks in search of layouts for this blog, I came across this 2-page layout which is sort of Shenandoah National Park. Now in a previous blog post I mentioned that my first set of NP layouts was Gettysburg. Which chronologically is true. However, what I realized as I took the photo of this spread is that this was the first layout I actually made about a national park.

When my niece was born in 2000, my sister decided we should learn to scrapbook. I had toyed with the idea a bit but didn't really understand it. However, I bought a scrapbook album kit and went to a crop at her friend's house. The consultant said I should start with the photos that I had most recently taken and that would include a weekend trip to Virginia for Memorial Day Weekend. We walked through Luray Caverns and then chose to drive along Skyline Drive. We did not understand how long it would take to see everything while making all the scenic overlook stops so we probably saw about 1/3rd of the road during this trip before heading home.

Technically, the only national park photos are the ones on the right page as the cloud formations were taken from our hotel room in New Market. I'm actually pleased with the composition of the photos considering how early this was in my scrapbooking life. The scrapbooking technique used here is called "wallpaper"--you simply use 2 background papers as the backdrop for all the photos. I chose this pale blue to represent the sky, and between that and the clouds, I think the top turned out fairly well. I wish I had matched the flowers on the left and right pages. I do like symmetry. Also, if I had to do it over, I would do something to stretch out the grass and place them more evenly across the 2 pages.

The page looks unusual because I ended up tearing the first scrapbook apart and using Creative Memories pages. The original CM pages were not quite 12x12, but the paper was. So there is a bit of paper overlapping the CM page edges and that's where the edges are getting worn even with a page protector.

What is most interesting to me is the fact that I layered photos. This is something I still struggle with today as I inherently want everything to be distinct. (I also don't like food touching on my plate so perhaps there is a correlation there). A couple weekends ago I participated in a scrapbook challenge to put more than 8 pictures on one page or more than 12 on 2 pages. I ended with a 2-page spread of 14 photos. After struggling with placement I realized I would need to stack the photos and it was as strange to me today after years of experience as ever. So I guess my take away is that everyone has room for growth.