It's been a while since I went to Philadelphia!

Wow, it seemed at the beginning of my blog that every other post was about Philadelphia. Now it's a rare treat! This was my annual trip with my students though.

This page is one of the Fast to Fabulous pages from a travel collection of CM. I used this once before for the same sort of photos taken during the NPTC Centennial Convention. Since that's in a different album I figured I could do this again. I added a page from a 6x6 tablet featuring the Declaration of Independence--it's one of the things they print here daily. The journal box is from the CM Archivers line. I augmented it with a sticker from the EN scrapbook kit. Sorry it's blurry!

A chamber of horrors?

Not for me! But if you are at all squeamish, perhaps you don't want to see this page. I'll add some extra space to give you time to go away.

















OK, if you made it this far, allow me to present a museum I was eager to see. To my knowledge, it's the only one that focuses on the medicine of the civil war and therefore, was on my bucket list. It does not disappoint if you're into that sort of thing.

This layout is based on a challenge from my monthly scrap class. We were challenged to use up scraps by making squares/diamonds and covering half the page. I doubled the original sketch and used some of my reminisce type papers for the diamonds. I chose one extra to mount the museum admission tag in a memorabilia pocket. The other page remnants are from a Graphic 45 line called Curiosity shoppe. Finally, I found a scrap to mount the title. I used small ABC letters but had to outline the yellow ones to get them to show up on the page. I mounted one brochure that does a nice job of discussing the apothecary wagon. After I was done with this layout and on to the next one, I actually found the museum brochure. Still, it's not detracting from the page with that item missing.

Most Wanted

The C&O canal stretches across the top of Maryland and I made my way to several of the stamping stations. One of them was their headquarters--an office building open only Monday through Friday. They have a HUGE box of stamps and I enjoyed getting impressions of all of them in my passport. I uploaded them to the NPTC database when I returned and found out that one of the stamps I collected there was a Most Wanted!  That's a stamp that was thought to exist but no one has seen in over a year. In fact, this one had been retired as possibly never to be found. I earned the certificate below for my find.

I really like what I did with this page. The EN scrapbook pack has a page with the stickers and stamps as a border, but it's 8 1/2 x 11. So I cut the pieces apart and stretched them around two 12x12 pages. I added a few other strips of paper and stickers to complete the border and then filled the middle with my photos and memorabilia. The Most Wanted certificate is in a Portrait Sleeve and that gave me another bit of scrapbook real estate to cover.

One of the other stops I made was out in Cumberland, MD. There was a lovely little museum and a few outdoor pieces to explore. I like that I was able to use a sticker I picked up at the visitor center as part of my page.

This shows the backside of the portrait sleeve. I wanted to marry it to the rest of the layout so I used additional strips of the NPS arrowhead paper on top and bottom. It is a little "off" the larger page but I think it makes a good transition.

Antietam part 2--Featured monuments

Last week I highlighted the tour I took through Antietam Battlefield. There are a couple of interesting markers that caught my eye and I wanted to give each their own page. First, just outside the farmhouse that served as a hospital was this memorial to Clara Barton. As a nurse, she's a favorite of mine and so here is a tribute to her work.
The background of this page is a piece of heritage paper from an old CM Reminisce line. The mats for the photo on the upper left and bottom right came from the same pack, just a little lighter in color. The concept for putting the page together came from this Pinterest page. I took the tone of the paper and a little of the theme of the embellishments (but toned it down to my taste level). The flowers came from a variety of packages. The middles were in a prize pack I got at a crop a few years ago. The purple colors and the pearl middles are from various CM embellishment kits. The mat with Clara on it is cut from an EN 8 1/2 x 11 page that normally has a variety of people along the edge. I decided to trim it down to just Ms. Barton and I like that not only does it highlight her for this page but that I can use the remaining images on future pages.

Edit for 10-14-19--OK, I'm going to edit the page to add how I met the challenge for Lasting Memories who is asking us to use items to highlight the word "CRISP" (for the fall). Here is my list:
C: Clara Barton
R: Red Cross/red brick/red flower
I: Ink (around the chipboard word "Legacy")
S: Stickers (key and pitcher/basin)
P: Pearls in the flowers

Near the observation tower was this tribute to General Meagher. I heard of him when Jim and I traveled to Ireland in 2001. The other side of his memorial is to the Irish Brigade he led. As Jim's family has a strong Irish heritage, I decided to include the tributes in the album.

This layout is part of the scrapbook class I'm taking so I cannot post the sketch. However, the idea was to use up our stash of papers. CM had, in its early days, provided triangles and paper strips and the class instructor came up with a fresh take on how to layer them to make a page. I like that it almost makes a chevron/arrow pointing to the photos. The strip down the middle here is not cardstock, but a remnant of paper ribbon. I thought the green tones went a long way to highlighting the Irish heritage.

Below is the same page but I'm highlighting the history of the battle.

I've discussed the peekaboo pockets before. What a great way to add a touch of journaling and the story imprinted on the stone but not make it the focus of the page.

Antietam part 1--the beginning and the end

Another part of my spring break trip was to visit Antietam. I have still not been able to get into the Pry Field house as the visiting window is just May to October, so I'm sure I'll have to go back. This week we look at the beginning and end of my auto tour. Next week we'll look at some of the monuments I saw.

This layout is scraplifted from Pinterest. I turned this into a 2-page layout by doubling the stars and the blue banner across the middle. The base pages are from Graphic 45 (see, they do make pages without too much embellishment!) On the flip side is one of the months from Places in Time. I bought a bunch of them to use this reverse side with just some corner flourishes. The large corner stars were cut on the Cricut from basic shapes while the smaller ones were scraps from various sticker and die-cut packs.

Part of the tour included a stop near this LONG fence and I took a LOT of photos though only 2 made it into the scrapbook. I also climbed a viewing tower for a nice overlook of the battlefield.

The left page is a paper I had printed. I downloaded the design with some Gettysburg Civil War pages from someone on Etsy but this one will work for a variety of pages. The right is some civil war canon paper I picked up at one of the scrapbook conventions I visited. The bottom right of the red star page and the journal box are all decorated with stickers from the EN scrapbook kit. Notice that I spaced them so the canon stickers are on the opposite page and the sticker of Burnsides Bridge is on the top of the page while the photo is on the bottom. That helps with the movement of the reader's eyes across the layout.

Locked up

My trek through the Maryland, West Virginia and Virginia area took me to one of the C&O canal locations. Visiting in March, several locations were closed, but Williamsport was open. The visitor center had a movie that was taken in the early 1900s showing traffic along the canal. It was a cold day but I took a walk up to Lock 44 and the keeper's house there. The house wasn't open for tours so I just looked around before heading back to my car.

This layout is scraplifted from this layout that I found on Pinterest. All of the small bits around the top and sides of the pages are scraps (yay for using up scraps!) I debated including the scavenger hunt booklet as the color is so much brighter than the photos, but wanted to fill up the page so I left it in. The sticker below the brochure is from the EN scrapbook kit.

A Short Walk on a Long Trail

While at Harpers Ferry I decided to visit the Appalachian Trail office. It was a bit longer than I anticipated walking from the lower town. AT Hikers stop here for a photo before heading north again and I was able to find a photo of a friend who stopped by in the early 90s.

I scraplifted this layout from the paper manufacturer's post on Scrapbook.com. I've found that when you have a lot of printed paper, using small amounts and layering keeps the page from being too busy.