The Hospital That Wasn't There

On the next day of my trip, I drove south of the city to the Chimborazo Visitor Center. This was the site of a rather large Confederate Hospital and the building on the site now (which wasn't there during the Civil War) houses a very nice medical museum. That's all I needed to hear to plan the trip!

I love this piece of paper. I don't remember what line it is from, but the silhouettes of soldiers seemed perfect as the backdrop to the introduction page. Almost ghostly in fact. To keep it simple, I just matted the photos with some dark paper similar to the black in the unigrid.

The next layout showcases the inside of the museum. I was delighted with the array of instruments and the displays. My favorite (which I hope is not too gory for my audience) is the amputation with the anatomical drawings to illustrate the tourniquet and bone knife. I actually used a few of these photos in one of my surgical technology lectures because the overall technique for amputation hasn't changed in 200 years. We've only upgraded the tools to high-speed electrical or gas powered saws.

Because I had so many photos, I only needed to decorate the edges. I used the Graphic 45 Olde Curiosity Shoppe paper and cut out the middles of 2 pages. The apothecary jars around the edge seemed the perfect choice for the medical photos. There were just a few blank areas left which became a journaling box and then a place to layer stickers or cut-outs from the other pages in the pack.

A Walk through Maggie Walker's House

Maggie Walker's residence was preserved to honor her work in developing community opportunities for African-Americans in the Richmond area. In addition to starting a bank, she had a role in many charitable organizations and women's rights groups. She had some tragedy in her life as well and that is talked about through the tour of her house.

I don't have any photos from the interior of the house, but I was able to get my photo taken with the NPS sign and to show the entire structure by knitting 2 photos together. To highlight the page, I took a rather old idea shown in this pin and updated it with stickers I had on hand (like the shoe instead of glasses shown in the original). Sorry the bottom right corner got cropped too much. That is a sticker of a trunk similar to the one in the pin. The journal box is from a Club Scrap farm/heritage page that I had. I chalked the edges brown to set it off on the page. No matting because the photos are so oddly shaped. Just a simple layout!

South to Richmond

Beginning this week we move forward to August 2012 to my annual trip to North Carolina with Jim's family. I travel on my own so that I can make stops at some national park units on the way. This year I drove to Richmond. Though I didn't see all of the park, I did see the Tredegar Iron Works and Chimborazo Hospital.

The border for the left page was based on this Father's Day Card. The inner squares use the Creative Memories Postage Stamp punch and then I used their mini car punch to add detail. By mixing up the colors of the cars on the background (sometimes turning them over to get a totally different color) it creates movement on the page. The white square underneath helps highlight the cut out cars in the postage stamps.

The background of the border and the Junior Ranger book on the right are from the same piece of paper. This is an early CM piece when they made papers 10x12. Still, by cutting it and spreading it across 2 pages, you get a lot of use from one sheet. The color block journal box was designed that way, I didn't make it. However, you could certainly use that as a template to make one of your own!

A New Friend

My last stop on the trip was a visit to Albert Gallatin's home called Friendship Hill. Mr. Gallatin was responsible for our treasury set up and for proposing the first National Road. I had a devil of a time finding the place because my GPS kept trying to take me on dirt roads! But I finally made it.

This page is opposite the Turkey Rock page of last week, so essentially kicks off the last section of the book. The page was inspired by this sketch. I like the simplicity of the design, but with the mechanical paper it brings that part of his story out quickly. The edges of the paper were rounded with a paper rounder (like this one) which gives the paper a softer effect.

The main part of my visit was a tour of the house. It was a self-guided tour and I worked on the Junior Ranger program which helped me focus on each of the rooms.

I feel like this is a 2-page layout but when I look at it, it almost seems like 2 pages just next to each other. I liked the wall paper on the left because the chair seemed reminiscent of the older furniture. On the right I used a Scallop Burst Border Maker on the top edge, then chalked the edge with brown ink to bring out the detail (the yellow was a little too light on the Spargo pages I use). The bottom are layered photos which took up quite a bit of space, so the journal box and stickers got the top half of the page by default.

My last page of the album.... I wasn't sure how to finish the journey, but the Junior Ranger book turned to my pledge page seemed a good idea.

The junior ranger book is rather thick, and since I wanted a bit of color I chose cardstock photo corners (a very old Creative Memories kit) in red. The edges of the page use the Medallion border maker cartridge.  A very useful design that has worked in many types of layouts for me. A little journaling about the end of the trip, and the book was done!

I hope you've enjoyed this voyage. Next week we begin my 2012 trip to Atlantic Beach with my in-laws. Lots more stories to come!

TIMBER!

After another night in Oshkosh, I was on the road again, this time with no timeline to hold to. I made a random stop at a Jelly Belly tour, and then as I drove through Ohio, I planned to visit the Fallen Timbers Monument. I had attempted a visit on my way out, but timing was off and I couldn't get the stamps. So, this time I went to the library in Maumee, OH, got the stamps and then used the maps provided to find the monument. This is not a full NPS unit yet, but there is land set aside and some monuments to the battles.

The left is a wallpaper page. Not overly detailed, but I amused myself by using "Timber" paper as the background. The right may seem a little short to you. It is actually one of the 8 1/2 x 11 Portrait Sleeves from the original Creative Memories Line. You'll remember that I used these on the cruise to hold the daily newsletters from the cruise line. Each page comes with a piece of cardstock inside, but I wanted to stick with the brown tones, so I substituted a piece of brown/tan from the Eastern National scrapbook collection. I trimmed one of the maps to highlight the area where I visited and to fit the paper. This was the most difficult decision to make as I couldn't figure out how to appropriately display the map to its best advantage.

The last page of this layout is then the back side of the Pocket Page. Remember I said the paper was 2-toned? The back is this nice shade of tan. This allowed me to use brown stickers from the Eastern National scrapbook kit to highlight the page. It's a cute story if you can read the plaque. I don't often include photos of the plaques, I just take them to remind me of the story so I can journal. But in this case I thought it would make the most sense to post the entire piece.

Oshkosh Air Show

On Monday morning I awoke early and went to the Oshkosh air show, which is a HUGE event. It was still hot even that early in the morning but I was able to last until 2:00 PM. The reason for the visit is seen on the page below. Dayton Aviation hosts a booth in the government pavilion each year and has a special stamp which is ONLY available at this show. Since we would be driving past, the club arranged a time and place to meet to get the stamp.

This is a very basic page. Unfortunately I tried to improve my photo of the page and made it sort of grainy. But essentially it is a plain page with just some matting under the photos and a border made with one of the original CM cartridges. I made a couple in green and tan (NPS colors) and wove them for the border at the bottom.

You can see that I'm using another peekaboo pocket. This time the journaling is on top and you lift it to discover the 2 photos of the group. (Sorry, one got cropped off.)

This was my last stop in Wisconsin. Next week, we start the trek home.

Raspberry Island Lighthouse

After grabbing some lunch, I boarded another boat for a trip with the club, this time to Raspberry Island. The island is still used as a place for a lighthouse, but the maintenance is MUCH less than when lighthouse keepers lived there year-round in the 1800s.

This layout was one that I made during my year of classes at Enchanted Memories. This is the Graphic 45 Place in Time paper. We made a layout for each month and the idea was to have a single album with all the layouts in one place. Since I'm such a free spirit (😊) I chose to use the layouts throughout my albums. So, it was July of 2012 and I was heading to a historic area on a lake where nautical/beach paper makes sense. It was the perfect opportunity to use it! I didn't have to edit the photos much to fit the page surprisingly. And the post card became the perfect place to store the ticket from the trip!

As we arrived, we found a rather long climb to get to the house on the bluff. But it was worth it as we got to see the house and storage sheds for the light.

This layout is similar to the first, and I wanted to create it for that reason. It provided a little continuity in the book. The paper is from Graphic 45's By the Sea collection which has been retired. However, I still had the paper and a link to the layout directions, so I was able to piece it together. This time the postcard became my journaling box.

Out in the yard, there were gardens and sports equipment featured. This is how families who lived in the house would spend their leisure hours in the summer.

The left page features some stickers I had been holding onto for YEARS. It's so rewarding when you can finally use something, and the croquet balls were in that category. I found paper that had multi-colored polka dots and I thought that a good background. But I didn't want to interfere with the border, so I cut it down to a 10" square and just mounted it in the middle. The bottom border is a retired Creative Memories border maker cartridge called "rustic fence". For the right page, it is wall paper. There actually is a pattern to the paper, but it is so light it isn't visible in the photo. To match the red tones of the left page I chose a border sticker and some flowers in red/pink to set off the natural beauty in the photos.

Next our tour took us into the home. We started in the kitchen and worked our way upstairs to the bedrooms.

These are both Fast to Fabulous pages from the Gallivant line. On the left I simply matted the photos in a rustic red. On the right I added borders which sort of looked like old wallpaper. It was too difficult to mat the photos since I took panoramic versions and glued them together. But I did like the look of seeing the whole room that way.

Our last stop was to go out on the walk surrounding the light (which is actually in the house, not a separate structure). I didn't venture out because the port hole exit was REALLY tiny. But I did capture some of our tour group as they looked across the water.

Does this page look familiar? 😀 This page featured photos of the entire house and I really liked that lighthouse paper. This ended the convention trip, but there are still parks to visit as I drove home. Next week a big air show!