Here's your sign, Hollywood

Another group of stops we made was to visitor centers in the foothills of the Santa Monica mountains. Those photos are on the right but I made them part of a double-page layout so you also get to see the Hollywood sign. It was a real challenge to find a spot to take my photo (bottom) so I added a postcard of the sign for good measure.

This layout is another challenge from the CM virtual crop. You can see the sketch on this page. I used paper from the Travel Log pack (paper, stickers, and mats). It makes it so easy to coordinate the items as the kits have a mix of matching tones.  Once I choose the elements, the page comes together fairly quickly.

Mission: San Gabriel

My next trip after Pipestone was actually our 2014 NPTC convention cruise. That album has been shared, so if you want to look chronologically, go to this post.

In September 2014 I went to an HPN conference in Long Beach, CA. After the conference, I traveled a little north to the Los Angeles area. I met up with a club friend who lives nearby and we made several drives around town to get stamps. One of the stops we made was to Mission San Gabriel--part of the Juan Bautista de Anza trail. It's a lovely church and still in use (as we tried to not disturb the baptism going on there).

The left page of this layout was created for the Creative Memories Virtual Crop. You can see the sketch here. The paper is from a new line called Memoirs and Memories. The sun in the center is cut from the center of one of the matching mat packs. The right page uses a mish-mash of older items. The paper is 10x12, so by stacking the photos on the left I hide the fact that it doesn't reach the edge of the page. The border on the right is from the older Archiver's line. The mat is from a Vintage pack from several years ago. I added the title of "Timeless" to the top. It's light in color so still not very prominent. The journal box is from a Club Scrap pack. When I originally cut it my blade was dull and so the edges are pretty rough. On the other hand, they look really rustic and I think that matches the page!

Pipe Dreams

In April I went to a conference in Sioux Falls, SD. After the meeting, I drove to the next state over (Minnesota), and visited Pipestone National Monument. The stones of the park have been used for centuries to create the ends of peace pipes and have been found across the US indicating trade with a variety of other Native American populations. The stones are still quarried and in addition to pipes they carve fetishes and other decorative pieces. It was nice to see one artist actively working in the visitor center.

This sketch uses a 1-2-3 layout from Noreen Smith. The paper is from the CM Textiles line and the stone pack. I used that paper for all 3 of the layouts for this trip and it really helped tie the pages together. The journal mat is a very old CM piece from a Croptoberfest kit and while it really isn't the same stone as either what is being shaped in the photos or in the paper, it still fits.

This set of pages includes stops along the Circle Trail within the park. In addition to the quarries, there are waterfalls, lakes, flora, and fauna. It's a great place to just walk around.

I used another 1-2-3 sketch and you can see it on Pinterest here.

For the left page of the layout, I had 2 photos of quarries and I was struggling with how to identify them. Peekaboo pockets to the rescue! Looking above the left photo is of the Indian Joe Pit. Then you flip the page over and...

It's the Exhibit quarry and Indian Joes' pit is hidden!

The last set of pages shows some of the other interesting stones--including some historical graffiti on the bottom right page.

This last set of pages uses yet another 1-2-3 layout from Noreen Smith. The tree sticker is from an older CM pack of autumn-themed stickers but it seems to work well with the tone of the page and the tribute hanging from a tree in the upper right photo.

And again, Peekaboo pockets help tell the story. The photo on the front says "look through here" and the photo underneath is actually my camera focused through the hole so you can see the Oracle Rock. A little journaling underneath and the page is complete!

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.