At the Convention

Saturday morning I drove to the visitor center in Ashland to look around before our meeting. It's a rather new building but already has nice displays. You can take an elevator to the top floor to look out on the surrounding area. That's what you see in the 2 photos on the right.

This layout is one of the 1-2-3 sketches by Noreen Smith. She has a lot of ways to take 1 piece of double sided paper, 2 scrapbook pages (or cardstock backs) and with just 3 cuts of the trimmer, you have everything you need to decorate the page. If you look at her sketch, you'll see I didn't use the banner cuts on the right page. But I was able to use the unigrid and the park entrance sign to completely fill the space between the coral papers. It really helps you stretch your supplies! Likewise, on the right I used the center brochure and a journaling square to fill in the left side of the page. I added a couple of stickers to the top left and the page was done in a flash!

We had lunch in the center and then started the meeting. On the left page is the registration area and on the right are a couple of photos of our speakers.

This layout is part of the 2017 Creative Memories National Scrapbook Day pack. Each year NSD is celebrated on the first Saturday of May and around that time, Creative Memories offers special themed papers and project recipes. I don't have a copy of the recipe used for this page, but check with me about a current offering! I know one complaint people have about pre-designed layouts is that their photos don't "fit" the design. But you can see here that I simply use the photo mats as part of the background. Although some do fit as indicated (like the 4x4 photo in the bottom right) others extend off the mat or I use them for journal squares. You should always make a layout work for you, don't feel you have to adjust your photos to the page.

This year our break during the meeting turned into a party! I was thrilled to see Smokey the Bear usher in the cake!

I went pretty simple for this page. I thought the brown background fit the bear theme. The bear in the corner is an old Mrs. Grossman sticker that I still had and I topped him with a Mrs. Grossman party hat (which is probably just as old). A mat and a journal box are the only other embellishments for the page.

Stockton Island

Friday evening I booked a tour with the NPTC to Stockton Island, one of the many islands in the Apostle Islands group. We left the dock and sailed out to the island. Once there we had a choice of activities.

I haven't shown this technique in a bit--but this is the 4 squares. This is an older pack of CM thank you paper that I trimmed to 6" each. The journal box is one I made a few years ago. The strip along the bottom of the journal box is from the CM Done with One Travel die cut pack. The same strip was used to punch circles for the title. Those are layered onto gold sand colored paper and the title was spelled with mini letters.

The activity that I chose was to stay by the campfire with the ranger and play Native American Jeopardy. They would ask a question in English and not only did we have to know the correct word, we had to use the dictionaries provided to translate that to the Native American word. The pronunciation was the trickiest part.

This page is simply laid out and is decorated with some of the outdoors paper from a Creative Memories pack you've seen before. What is a little different about this is the photo in the upper right corner. See the "lift" tag? I used a new product from Creative Memories called Peekaboo Pockets to put in more sunset photos. I almost threw out 4 photos, but I was able to attach them to the page without crowding the layout! They are a great addition to the CM brand and you'll see them again in a couple of weeks!

The photo below is what the page looks like if you take the "lift" tab and extend it all the way to the left. If you compare the photos closely you'll see the difference from the one above.

I really went "all out" on my first use of the pockets. I created a string of 2 together!
Below is what the page looks like when you pull the tab all the way to the right.

What's great about the pockets is that you can attach them to the page directly at an edge, and they'll rest on top of the page protector, or you can attach them to the page protector directly. My recommendation is that if you cannot get the pocket near the edge of the page, attach to the page protector directly. I've tried on 2 different occasions to slice a hole in the page protector to let the pocket come through and each time it took a lot of effort and I ruined a page protector as well once. The strip above IS through the page protector because of the direction I wanted the flaps to open, but I'm not sure I would do it again.

I hope you try your hand at them and let me know in the comments how you liked it!

North Country Trail

I reached the Ashland Wisconsin area late in the evening of July 19th, but was up bright and early the next day to explore the area. Finding the entrance to the North Country trail was more difficult than I had imagined. Eventually, I found some signs for this trail entrance and stopped to get a photo. I had an evening activity planned so I didn't stay too long.

This is a combination of paper to create the background. Remember the beach page from last week's Indiana Dunes layout? This is the Timber page from which I cut the fence posts. I didn't want to make the empty spot at the bottom TOO noticeable so I chose a dark brown cardstock and ended up using it as a sort of journaling box using a silver pen. I like the way the photos blend together for continuity. The upper right is a sticker for the trail that I picked up at one of the visitor centers.

Time Traveling in Indiana

The blog title refers to the interesting phenomenon of traveling from South Bend Indiana to Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore. I crossed a time zone line while driving the 60 miles between my 2 stops. I left South Bend at 9:30 AM and arrived at Indiana Dunes at 9:30 AM! My first stop was the visitor center where I found information about the nearby Chellberg Farm. Although the buildings were not open for touring, I was able to walk around the property and get a sense of farm life. Including the little frog that welcomed me on the path.

 This layout was inspired by a Club Scrap page (scroll down to layout 3-4). The windmill was the main reason I wanted to use this paper and I think it worked out perfectly.

I thought I should actually see the lake and dunes for this park, so I looked at the map and found a place I could drive to with nice views. My favorite sign is pictured below and I came across it as I drove to the shore.

This layout is scraplifted from this page. I  liked being able to use some remnants on the page. The fence posts are cut from the Creative Memories Timber paper pack. I also used a title from Paper Loft, some old CM stickers on the top right, and some torn paper for the beach. The unigrid actually adds some life to the page with the image of the bird.

Connie's WHAT?

If you are an NPTC member going to the convention this year, here is a preview of the book you will see! There are more layouts in the album than you will see here on the blog since I'm only featuring the National Park pages, so don't miss it!

The next 10 weeks are going to highlight a trip made in July 2012. The NPTC national convention was held at Apostle Islands in Wisconsin and I decided to drive there and back instead of flying. I planned to take a couple of days to get there and a couple of days to drive back, so a week on the road total. I tried to get Jim to come with me, even planned a trip to a HUGE air show in Oshkosh, but nothing would convince him. He said, and I quote: "I am NOT driving to Wisconsin!" As I planned the trip and the stops I would make, somehow Jim started calling this my "Northern Migration" (I guess due to the destination at the top of Wisconsin). Well, the name stuck and I used it in my journal and now in the scrapbook. So here is the kick off page for the trip:

My page was inspired by this page. I tried using large ovals instead of "free handing" the mountain cuts and it was only partially successful. I definitely manipulated the stickers to spell out my title but I think it is acceptable. The word "Wisconsin" and the state shape were both cut on the Cricut from a free file I found online.

My first stop was in Ohio at Cuyahoga Valley National Park. This is nature in the middle of urbania but thus provides a great escape for those living in the area. There are lots of trails to walk and rivers to navigate. I confined my visit to the historical part of the park which covered the making of canal boats and commerce in the area in the 19th century.

The left page is my itinerary. I didn't realize how extensive it was going to be, so if you look closely you'll see the layers of journal paper as I kept adding entries. As I did for the cruise, I used stickers as bullet points for each day of the trip. One of my postcards came in handy for this page as well (I do like to augment my photos with postcards).

The right page is a fast to fabulous page with just plain green background (matching the left wallpaper) and 2 tan photo boxes. I think the Unigrid works well in a photo box space. The journal box was cut to fit between the photo and the page edge.

Inside the first visitor center were displays of how the canal boats were made and models of the area as it appeared when the boats were in service.

The left page is the reverse of the fast to fabulous page. This was just a beige page with some postage stamp cancellations. I matted the photo  and other than journaling, I didn't add much to the page. The right page is wallpaper found to match the beige of the left. I liked the design at the top and thought it represented a ships wheel.

My next stop was at the historic railway in the park. I didn't take time to ride the train because I needed to get to my first hotel stop at a reasonable hour. I did tour the historic depot with manager's office display.

I am rather proud of myself for this page. I like the antique feel of Graphic 45 papers, but they are so detailed they rather intimidate me. In 2017 I signed up for a year of classes at a local scrapbook store and we used a Graphic 45 kit to make a year of pages (one for each month). By learning how they worked with the papers, I struck out on my own for this layout.

I have a tablet of the "Come Away With Me" papers, now discontinued, and I used that for this layout. I used one of the map-looking papers as borders for the left and right edges. I cut train borders from one page and used the reverse side with blue, brown and pink papers to mat photos and the decorative die cuts. I found both the blue trunk and brown train on a separate page and added them in. A stamp with a train was also on the matching sticker sheet I owned. The brown border under the trains at the top is made with the Creative Memories Scallop Burst Border Punch. I thought it looked a bit like train wheels. It's not nearly as detailed as my classes, but I'm quite happy with the result!

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!

Another stop at WWII

It's just before Memorial Day, so a perfect time to post this visit to the WWII memorial.

Until writing this blog, I don't think I realized how many times I visited the WWII memorial. It may actually be a higher visit count than Independence! Coming off the Tidal Basin, I had to go past this area on my way to the Metro station, and so it's always nice to stop. As the sun was setting, I couldn't take many photos, but I did like the sunset view of the Lincoln Monument over the reflecting pool. Of course I had to take a photo of the Army Air Forces symbol as I remember my grandfather who served in the war in that branch of the military.

When I found this paper, I KNEW I had to use it for the WWII memorial. The wall on the other side of the reflecting pool is filled with stars representing those who died during the war. I mounted everything on black to set it off from the field of stars. The unigrid even got mounted on black cardstock. The bottom of the page is another black strip of paper with a border sticker of stars from Paper House's Washington DC cardstock stickers. Above that is a die cut of the WWII memorial from the Eastern National.