50-states Album Part 32--Wyoming

This is the last page in my 50-states album. As I visit additional states or find photos of the trip, I will post more pages. I've been to 39 states and have shown you about 32 layouts. Next week we'll go back to my chronological albums and trip albums.

Wyoming was a state we passed through on the Great Western Loop in the summer of 2017. We flew into Denver, rented a car, and drove to South Dakota. We had GREAT fun going to Fort Laramie (tip--do not follow your GPS unless you like driving on dirt roads!) We also got to visit Devil's Tower (go ahead with the Close Encounters theme in your head now). Wyoming is a wild place and you really should visit. We enjoyed our time there and have lots of memories to look back on and laugh.

This layout is based on this sketch. Clearly, I used only 1/2 of the page. I owned a sticker of barbed wire, wood-grained paper and the appropriate card stock so I could really do this one justice. The cowboy/cowgirl and horse were cut on the Cricut. I had actually used them once before in a different album but I thought them a perfect fit to a story about Jim and I traveling out west. The state shape of Wyoming is not that interesting so I jazzed up the state name by finding a font that looked like a rope. You can look at DaFont.com if you want to find some really different free fonts for cutting or writing. This time I used a pen in the Cricut--not something I do a lot of but it made the rope look real to me. I had to trim each letter by hand but I think that made it work on the page better.

50-states Album Part 31: Wisconsin

I've only been to Wisconsin once. In the summer of 2012 I drove from Pennsylvania to Wisconsin for a National Park Traveler's convention. It took me 2 days to drive out because I stopped at several other locations along the way. On the return trip I stopped at the Osh Kosh air show--one of the largest in the country. Even that was not enough to get my husband to travel with me to Wisconsin!

I never really had an inspirational layout for this page. I started with a die-cut image of a mouse wearing a Packer's cheesehead. But as I looked through my stash, I found that I had this piece of Wisconsin themed paper and that's all I needed! Truly the easiest of the 50 pages to put together. (Not that I didn't have similar pages for other states, I just resisted using them--Wisconsin was the hardest to locate a themed page to copy.) Other than the photos, all I contributed to the page was the diecut of the state in Packer Yellow and a couple of Packer stickers (also leftover from scrapping this trip).

50-states album part 30: West Virginia

West Virginia has always been a transit state for me--a way to get to Virginia and points south. There are only a few trips to West Virginia that I remember. Of those 3 trips, there is only one photo of me with a landmark and that's this trip to Harper's Ferry. The landmark is called Jefferson Rock because it is supposedly where Thomas Jefferson stood to survey the area (when it was still part of Virginia).

The layout is based on this page. I liked the subdued colors and the burlap feel of the original. But I'm not one to use a heavy fabric like that on a page. I found a sheet of paper from the Creative Memories Textiles "Cloth" pack which worked well and then a strip of a wood grain paper across the bottom. The tag used as a journaling box is a real kraft tag. The title and the state shape were cut on the Cricut. I wanted to add a touch about one of my other visits--the Beckley Mine Museum--so I used a cut I made previously (check out the Pennsylvania page) to give a little more "identity" to the state. The banners at the top were made of scrap paper. And I was glad to use up some very old flower stickers to complete the look.

50-states part 29: Washington DC

How appropriate that the post for the weekend of Independence Day features our Nation's capital! There have been so many trips to DC that it was hard to find just a couple of photos to highlight. I ended up choosing one of my visits to the National Mall when I got to have a book signed by my favorite author--Diana Gabaldon. The other image is from the monument on the Mall that means the most to me--the WWII monument (honoring my grandfather).

The idea for the layout came from this page. The background paper with the faint image of the US in gingham is a sheet from Creative Memories "Star-Spangled" paper pack (a retired line). It was actually a remnant from another project but that was perfect because I could add the red and blue borders. The top border is one I had made YEARS ago. I either found an idea sheet or blog post and copied it with what I had available. The strip across the middle is vellum which helps soften the dark navy blue of the paper. I planned to use that for some Cherry Tree visits but hadn't used it by the time I got to this page. So I used the cherry tree elements to carry through onto the journal box. Pink is a nice match for the bright red and also tames the dark blue. Quite patriotic on multiple levels.

50 States Part 28--Washington State

Jim and I have been to Seattle twice each. But only once together! This page focuses on both of my trips. The photo of us at Boeing is actually a green screen photo but when you tour you cannot take a camera so it's the only way to get a photo of the massive plane construction complex. In downtown Seattle, I took a selfie with the Space Needle and I think it was a great addition to the page. Lastly, on the left is Hurricane Ridge in Olympic National Park. It's a massive park and I enjoyed my stay but I'll have to go back to see more!

This layout was based on an idea I saw posted on Facebook. This page uses all the same elements but by adding the mountains behind the city border, it makes it "Washington" even more! This page could have skewed patriotic but I think the bottom border keeps it in a vacation feel instead. The top border uses the CM Border Maker Cartridge system. The 2 bottom borders are free-standing border punches. Layering punches is a great way to change up the feel of the border. I left enough space at the bottom of the city border to add the title.

50 States Album part 27--Virginia

Virginia, as anyone who has driven the entire length of I-81 knows, is a VERY long state! We've made quite a few trips over the years, especially when my uncles lived near Charlottesville. This page features one of my solo trips to the beach where I stopped in Richmond for some touring to break up the trip to North Carolina. That's the Maggie L. Walker NPS unit. The other photo is from Mabry's Mill which is along the Blue Ridge parkway. I highly recommend a stop at the restaurant near here and if you can get the blackberry cobbler--do so!

My inspiration for this layout came from this page. The cut-out of the state was one of my trickier bits of fussy cutting. I did have the Cricut cut the outline shape in blue. I mounted that on white and fussy-cut around leaving a small border, then mounted that on red and did the same thing.

I found it amusing to place a sticker of "We the People" just like the original (which hardly ever happens) but then augmented with some civil war and colonial stickers I had on hand to demonstrate the age of the state. The small informational piece on Maggie Walker is from the Eastern National scrapbook kit. I had cut a framed piece out previously for Clara Barton so this was an easy way to add more detail on a rather obscure historical figure.

50 States Album Part 26--Texas

This was a trip from May 2015 when I went to a surgical technology conference in San Antonio. We also took some time to do additional sightseeing and we drove to the LBJ ranch and the state capitol in Austin.

The inspiration for this layout is from this page. The giant Texas image is perfect to me because EVERYTHING is bigger in Texas! The state name is cut on the Cricut. The background paper is a piece of paper from the Paper Loft. The remaining stickers are from a package of Texas stickers from my stash. The stars are punched from some leftover paper and cardstock.