Centennial part 20--Military Hall

My next stop was just down the street from the portrait gallery. This small museum highlights the history of the US military, though more specifically the navy and marines.

I bought this kit, though  I cannot remember the name of the company that produced it. I liked that there were some nautical themes so that it worked for the navy/marines component of this museum. The anchor and the ship's wheel/rocket mats use the "polaroid" style mats that came with the kit. Another is used for a photo on the top of the right page. Several other photos got a white mat to help them pop from the background though a few didn't need the help. Because it was a pre-designed kit it went together fairly quickly but I was still able to modify it to work with my photos and needs.

Centennial Part 19--The Portrait Gallery

After lunch I started to wander around the Independence sites. I wanted to take a ranger tour in the afternoon and then return to the visitor center for a picnic. Until the ranger talk started I walked over to the Second National Bank which is now a portrait gallery. There is an entire gallery of Peale portraits, but so much more!

This layout was scraplifted from this layout. I spent quite a bit of time putting small strips of scraps together to underlie the right central box, and then ended up covering up almost all of it with the journal box at the top. Well, I did get rid of some scraps this way!

Centennial part 18--an 18th century lunch

After the plaque dedication we walked over to City Tavern for a group lunch. You can always count on City Tavern for a good meal when visiting Philadelphia!

This layout was created when I went to a Paper Loft class at the Lancaster Scrapbook Convention. The paper is called Persnickety and though this kit isn't sold on the site there are some really nice kits available that are similar. The letters for City Tavern on the lower right page were cut on the Cricut. There is a free font that has the curly cues on the letters and I thought that matched the location perfectly.

Centennial Part 17--the Centennial arrives!

Thursday was a very exciting day for our club. We had raised funds to purchase and donate a Mather Plaque to Independence National Historical Park. They arranged for the media to cover the grand unveiling. It was a fabulous moment for our club.

This layout is one that I made at a class at Enchanted Memories in Hershey. Both pages were supposed to have the banners arranged vertically, but I had trouble moving the photo mats without ripping the paper so I ended up just turning the page on its side. I cut the letters for "Founders Day" on the cricut using some silver paper. I shadowed the left page letters in black so that they stood out on the patterned paper.

After the unveiling we took a LOT of photos. The park arranged for some historical reenactors to walk around and talk about the period when the NPS was founded.

The borders for these pages were made with an older cartridge for the CM Border Maker system. I punched 3 rows of each color and wove them together. The dots were from a regular hole punch like you would use for school (which turns out to be very tedious to use frequently). The left page has a die cut created by another club member. We made sets of borders and die cuts for the picnic, but there were few people actually interested. The other die cut is  from a Creative Memories patriotic tablet from a few years ago. The remaining stars were punched from an older CM punch as well as from the the border maker system (they might be the reverse side of the borders I made for the Franklin Museum visit).

Centennial Part 16--The Old Barracks

On Wednesday I toured by myself for a bit. I stopped at the New Jersey capitol building, and while they did have a lobby dedicated to the National Park centennial, I chose to not include it in the blog. It is in the album, so if you are particularly interested, stop by to look! After the capitol building I walked around the corner to the Old Barracks. This is part of the Crossroads of the American Revolution trail. This is where the Hessian soldiers were stationed when George Washington made his famous river crossing and attack on Christmas day. I was the only person on my tour, and it took more than an hour to go through all the various rooms.

This is a pair of Fast to Fabulous pages. Once again you can see that I strayed outside of the pre-printed photo boxes. I chose these 2 because of the writing on the background. It reminded me of a letter home. I attempted to piece together photos to show the shape of the compound, but ran out of space on the page, so on the right there are 2 photos combined at the top and the remaining side is below. The title is cut from the Cricut in nice big letters. You can make the letters any size you like, which can be a real bonus to page filling.

Centennial Part 15--Forging Ahead!

Happy New Year everyone! I hope you have enjoyed the journey along my National Park travels with me. Get ready for another year full of layouts!

So as I discussed last week, after Hopewell Furnace we had lunch and then drove over to Valley Forge. We had a choice between seeing the movie for its last showing or taking the last trolley tour. We all chose the trolley and had a great time together moving from stop to stop.

This 2-page layout uses an old version of Fast to Fabulous. The images weren't imprinted on a page, it was sort of like buying layout kits that were finished. So I struggled with using this layout as the background is sort of "loud". But the brown tones spoke to me and seemed to match the log cabin feel. The left side is all about the trolley. I suppose I could have stretched that into its own 2-page layout, but by now I was realizing how THICK this album was getting. Still, there was an excitement about the trip and perhaps the movement of the background echoes that theme on our faces!

The trolley drove to several areas of the park but we only got off at 2 stops, the encampment huts in the above layout and Washington's Headquarters in the layout below. The other monuments were photographed from the trolley which had its own challenges in getting a good perspective. But I loved that it took us to Washington's Headquarters as I'd not been there on my previous visits.

This pair of pages was inspired by the flag on the lower right corner. This is the flag that symbolized that General Washington was in residence here. So I had paper that was a blue background with white stars and used a wallpaper technique for the photos. To add to the patriotic flavor I added some red photo mats and red tinted journal boxes. The bear is fussy cut! He's the model for a larger die cut that I assembled, and I didn't want to waste him since he was so cute!

Our tour of Washington's Headquarters took us through many areas including where soldiers stayed and where the slaves stayed. The left page is the stark reality of the difference in treatment of the two classes. I borrowed the title from the British drama of the same name though the roles are definitely reversed.

The left page is sort of scraplifted from this layout. I used 5 different pieces of paper on this page which was challenging for me. Finding the matching sizes of prints as the scraplifted layout allowed me to use up some scraps and create a vintage tone at the same time. The lettering is cut from the Cricut. I intentionally used the paper on the layout to color the openings for the letters. You can also cut small circles and attach to the backs if you want a contrasting look.

The right page is actually wallpaper. I know there are some templates and guides to create a sunburst effect, but it's so much simpler when the page is printed that way! I thought that the mix of patterns was similar enough to the previous page to be a match and had enough of a vintage feel to match the period of the house.

Centennial Part 14--Hot as an oven

Tuesday morning the club met a little west of Philadelphia at Hopewell Furnace. This park commemorates the era of plantation houses and iron manufacturing prevalent in the area. The park staff are very nice and help our club quite a bit. They even had some special stampers out for us! We watched the movie as a group and then took a ranger walk through the park.

This is a single page following the end of the Maurice River cruise. It turned into a mini kick-off page for this part of the trip and I decided to do an introduction with a "then and now" theme. The top photo is a postcard of the original site from the early days (late 19th century) and the bottom photo is present day. That left little room for the unigrid, so I decided to go ahead and mount it sideways. I've done that before when the image is viewed better in that direction, but this time it was a matter of convenience. Still, its purpose is mostly to be able to take it out and review the maps and information at a later date, and it certainly will serve that purpose.

We started out with quite a few people on the tour, but many drifted away as the ranger moved us from building to building. By the time we reached the foundry, there were just a handful left.

This paper reverts to wallpaper technique. I used a plaid pattern as I was trying to evoke a "homestead" sort of feel. Impressively the title "Ranger Walk" made of letter stickers did not require modification of the letters! The corner designs were something new I was trying with a Cricut machine. I had not gotten the hang of sizing them appropriately for the page so they are a little small, but nice page fillers. I'm most proud of my journal box that incorporates a cast iron stove along the edge of the sticker. Hopewell Furnace is famous for producing early stoves in that design.

I wanted to finish the entry with some photos of the buildings. My favorite is the water wheel that drives the bellows.

This layout is scraplifted from Club Scrap's Homestead collection (see layouts 1 and 2). Now I don't own ALL of the parts of this collection, but I could use the background pages and the orange stripes. The most important part for me was the wheel image on the paper and the "then and now" theme from the left orange bar "Yesterday Today Tomorrow". I had a different journal box that matched the style of the kit and also found the banner segment on the right hand page from a different collection, but I think the colors matched up fine.

I also had photos of club members throughout the site and I chose to highlight them on the last layout pages. After touring we all went to lunch at a restaurant near Valley Forge (which is not far away) and the right page features that. It's a preview to next week's pages!

This is a true SCRAP page. The light brown NPS logo paper was originally 8 1/2 x 11, and I had used it on another layout. I cut the remainder into 2 blocks and used them to back some photos and bring the 2 pages together. I took another 8 1/2 x 11 page that featured the stamps and passport and cut the page to make a right sided border. The part I cut out (the passport book) decorates the left page nicely. A couple of stickers and a camera journal box pulled the page together. As eclectic as the components are, it really works as a layout for me.