Among the tree tops

We drove further into the Great Smokies with the intent to climb Clingmans Dome. We did it!

On the left is a remnant of paper from the Best in Show pack from CM. Although it's made for animals, the paper is quite useful for many layouts and the clouds were especially useful here. Along the bottom is a sticker border I wanted to use. I was surprised to find that it was really 3 stickers, but they went together so nicely I left them stacked (bottom grass, road and mountain). I added the words "scenic route" to a sign sticker and a vellum car. To me, tht border encapsulates our trip up to the hiking trail. On the right is a page I had originally intended to use for a Girl Scout page. The trees and brown tones also matched the scenic view.

I won't lie, the hike--although short--is strenuous because you start at a higher elevation and climb up another 1000 feet or so. I had to stop often to catch my breath and that's why I chose to have a little fun with the photo of me reaching the top (while gasping for breath).

Still, it's not that I want to highlight that photo so I covered it with a Peekaboo pocket and put the journaling on top. Then on the inside I found a decorative mat that also captured the thrill of the climb!

Mountain home

In the summer of 2013, the NPTC convention was at Shiloh National Military Park. Events were in both Tennessee and Mississippi, and Jim and I planned a 2-day drive to get to the convention. On our way there we stopped at Great Smoky Mountains and drove through the eastern side of the park.

I wanted to use up some of my Fast to Fabulous travel pages, so I pulled out 2 with travel stamps on them (though from 2 different packs). When trying to coordinate the layout, I ran out of room for some of the memorabilia so I added an 8 1/2 x 11 pocket page to hold the brochures. The left page is really just the one photo of me arriving at the visitor center and then I used a mat card (remember what I said about my class from last week!) In trying to tie all the pages together I chose a zig-zag border maker cartridge and cut several coordinating colored borders. The first 2 are in gray tones on the top of the left page and remind me of the mountain chain. On the front of the pocket page I made a border with the Cricut and the Campin' Critters cartridge. Those badges remind me of my Girl Scout days! I used the same paper as the border background to make the zig-zag for the right side.

At the visitor center is a collection of houses taken from the various parts of the mountains and collected to make a village.

For the back of the pocket page I used a deep red cardstock for the zig zags and then for added interest, used them diagonally on the page.  That red was also a good choice because of the red element on the left page that peeks through (the backpack). The right side, the F2F is just 3 photos and 2 stickers so the page came together quickly.

The next few layouts go into the homestead in more detail including the inside of cabins we could see and some of the other buildings common to a mountain home.

I dug through my papers and came up with some very good matches to the photos. On the left, the wood resembles the interior of the cabin. On the right the background is from Club Scrap's farm line. The shed and fence worked perfectly for the outdoor area. On the left, an orange "cut apart" from the same Club Scrap line worked well to break up the dark colors. The title worked perfectly too given the humble abode!

Just a few more outbuildings including a forge!

And this is another example of the sketch that I used last week for the bridge at Moore's Creek. This time paper was from the CM Adventure pack plus some decorative mats from Paper Loft, Club Scrap and some other pack that I apparently bought with farm life :) This time where the 3 photos are to go on the bottom of the right hand page I layered 2 photos to give a better image of the interior of the forge. That's the great thing about sketches, they are FLEXIBLE!

King George and Broadswords

Before we get into this week's post, I wanted to remind you that May 4th (the first Saturday in May) is National Scrapbook Day! It's always a good excuse to sit in the scraproom and create! Enjoy!

While at the beach with the inlaws, I chose a day to see Moore's Creek National Battlefield. This is a Revolutionary War battlefield (a little different from all the civil war sites I had been seeing). This battle is also a key element in a novel by Diana Gabaldon and so I was keen to see it in person. The drive from our beach house was 2 hours but for me well worth the drive!

Once again I began on the right page. The 2 historic canon from the battle were one of the highlights of my visit and though the wall paper I used was really for civil war, the short barrel made it ideal to highlight this time period. I probably should have matted the photos as they seem to be getting lost on the page though. On the left is an old piece of CM paper from the "Discover and Delight" line. I liked the grittiness of the background and sort of thought the dots along the top could be cannonballs :)

Another key feature of the park is the bridge on the left page below. The Americans removed many of the timbers and greased those that were left to prevent the British from crossing the creek.

This layout is from a class I am taking with Noreen Smith (Organized and Creative Mom). I cannot post the sketch, because of the rules of the class but it is one of her classic 1-2-3 layouts. The class theme is Scrap Your Stash, and for January we were encouraged to use up journal cards and decorative mats. The background paper is from Paper Loft. The top left mat card is from the CM Archivers line. The rest of the cards are so old it's a mystery where they are from! (I do know that the History title is from the EN scrapbook kit. I thought layering it on the circle a nice touch). I like that on the right page I used the postcard to stand in for 2 photo elements of the sketch. What will be interesting is that I used this same sketch 3 or 4 times on different park pages and you'll see it again and get a chance to compare them next week.

What's in That Case?

Heading further south, I arrived at Petersburg. I am fond of this place since Jim wrote about the battle in his first book. I saw the new movie and walked through the visitor center but didn't have time to walk the battlefield.

The theme for these pages is Red White and Blue. I chose wallpaper for all the pages. This one came from a CM paper pack that has a bit of a denim feel to it. Red mats help to keep the black and white photo from getting lost on the page. To add some more details I used an older CM star punch which has 2 different sizes. I cut the larger in white and the smaller in red and then stacked them.

These are some of the items I thought were most interesting in the museum area. I have overall shots and then some close-ups for detail.

Thanks to Jim's book I knew that George Meade played a key role in the battle and so I chose a sheet of paper I found with his likeness and a quote. The photos have a lot of orange in them from the back of the case so I didn't need to mat them. The right page is also wallpaper. I had found some digital paper for Gettysburg and sent it to a company to print full sheets of paper, This is one of the prints and I thought the red on the right page balanced the blue from the left. These photos also didn't need matting because their backgrounds were pale white.

The Outskirts of Richmond

June is the annual trip to the beach with Jim's family and my time to visit parks on my way there (North Carolina). In 2013, I returned to the Richmond area but traveled the battlefields just outside of the city. They were involved in several different campaigns but proved a bloody field no matter when fought.

This layout was inspired by a Pinterest idea which I turned into a 2-page layout. The bottom half of the page uses up some paper that isn't a full 12" wide so I cut two pages to 6" (and will use the rest on other pages down the road). The top half is one full 12" sheet cut in half (I believe from the Stone paper pack). The middle is a strip of pine from the very old Evergreen pack which nicely hides the seam. The stickers are from Reminisce Civil War.

There were several other smaller sites to visit but the one that stood out was this large field which was the scene of several suicidal charges reminiscent of the gory Picket's charge at Gettysburg.

This page is wallpaper. I liked the photographic image of the canon because it matched the photos I had on hand but gives more detail. Red cardstock mats help to prevent the photos from getting lost on the page.

Philly Philly

Once more to the City of Brotherly Love! On this trip my only foray into NPS territory was my lunch at City Tavern. But I was able to obtain several pieces of memorabilia to commemorate my visit. If you come to see the album you'll learn about Dr. Physick and his home which is a historic site of an 18th century physician.

This layout is one side of a purchased kit from Club Scrap (scroll down to layouts 5 and 6). I bought the kit because I knew that I would have some gastropub photos, but when I realized this was a non-photo layout, I thought it would be perfect. On the bottom left are 2 coasters (never used) that came with the kit. It's not really what I would have put there, but of all the non-paper pieces sent with the kit, they were the least objectionable. It took me about 3 hours to put all the layouts together so the other 7 are ready for my next adventure!

The Spoils of War

My visit to Arlington Cemetery was to visit a new NPS unit for me. Arlington House was the family home of Robert E. Lee. Because he chose to fight for the Confederacy during the civil war, the government confiscated his property and began burying Union soldiers in the yard (the start of the National Cemetery). Eventually the house was restored to its 18th/19th century form and outfitted with family pieces. Robert E. Lee's wife was a descendant of George Washington's wife Martha Custis and so there are quite a few nods to the Washington line in the house as well.

This is another example of making the right side first. I scraplifted the right side from this page which features the Archivers paper and borders from CM (now retired). I thought the roses were a good fit for the home and so on the left I chose the rose paper borders for the top and bottom with the same background paper. The die cut on the left is from the Eastern national DC scrapbook kit

Even though a government shutdown was happening I could still tour just about the entire house and so I made my way down to the basement kitchen. I also toured the slave quarters behind the house.

This is wallpaper with a wood paper from the CM Timber pack. I matted the photos  with a piece of brown burlap from the Cloth pack (both now retired). The kitchen tools across the top is from a previous release of an 8x8 recipe book. I use the papers and elements on my 12x12 pages.

After leaving Arlington I took the bus back to the Mall area and stopped at the largest cache of passport stampers in the city--the bookstore near the Washington monument.

This ended my tour in DC for this trip. I chose to use a wallpaper page featuring cherry blossoms as that was the original purpose of my trip, even though I never saw any. I did grab a quick photo of the Washington Monument still under renovation from the earthquake.