Happy Trails part 16--San Elizario Moseying

I wanted to take a moment to say Happy Holidays to all of my readers. This will post on Christmas night (prepared ahead of time of course) so I hope you are all celebrating in a safe and meaningful way with your friends and family. 

Saturday morning I had some free time so I decided to continue my exploration of the El Camino Real de Tierra Adentro by driving to a small town called San Elizario. There is a self-guided walking tour of the town showing some of the historic structures. It's a very small town but they are quite proud of their history and I stopped at just about all of the sites along their route. The first stop had to be for the stamp of course. It's in a small visitor center/museum and also had a small video to watch.

 This layout is based on a sketch from one of my classes that can't be shared. It is the same structure as the 1-2-3 layouts I've shared previously though. I used brown cardstock as a base and the barbed wire paper had the red/white stars on the back. Very quick cuts. I added a few embellishments from my western sticker stash--mostly little button type stickers.

Happy Trails part 15--White Sands (the sand)

The club met at one of the picnic pavilions for our Friday get together. There are also individual picnic tables (shown below) which can be turned to provide shade. They remind me of sailboats a little. Dinner was nice, but it was just fun to talk to all my friends I hadn't seen in quite a while.

This layout is from Club Scrap. I had only purchased the "cut apart" sheets for the picnic theme and had to supplement the designer paper and background pages with items from my stash (which is not a bad way to use up product). The blue/green stripe paper came from the Cool Serenity line that I had used on the first White Sands pages so this became the perfect way to move to the dinner portion of the park. Notice that the original layout on the bottom right calls for 3 vertical photos cut small and angled. But, I had 2 horizontal photos that bridged those 3 spaces and I like that EVEN BETTER! 

After dinner, we joined 2 of the park rangers for a walk along the dunes while they told us all about the park. It was a large group but we all managed to stay together and the walk was quite pleasant. Until we turned around and realized that there was a storm brewing behind us and it was heading straight for us! The rangers gathered us all together and herded us back to the pavilion. The "sand" storm (as I said last week, it's really gypsum) created a great exfoliating facial (has to be some sort of silver lining right?) and while uncomfortable as we walked through it was not truly damaging. Once back at the pavilion we did have time to get our junior rangers sworn in before heading home for the day.

These 2 pages were created using Photo Dies. The left page uses the hexagon from Kit #6, while the right uses Kit #18. I probably need to buy a few more as they have some nice new designs. I like the concept of the page stencils (Lea France and Creative Memories both make those) but I don't have the evenness when cutting and I'm always disappointed in how they turn out. With photo dies, the cuts are perfect every time and because it's a 2-sided die, it cuts the frame and the photo simultaneously. That also leaves the inner mat as another shape and on the left page, I was able to use those to fill the corners. Those were filled with fussy-cut photos and titles and the page was complete!

Happy Trails part 14--White Sands (the sun)

 After leaving Fort Selden, I drove to White Sands National Monument (it was then, it has since been updated to a National Park). We had planned an NPTC picnic there. I arrived with enough time to explore the park on my own a bit. It's important to note that while it is called "sand" it is not the same material you would find on a seaside beach. This is a huge amount of gypsum that has been liberated from the nearby mountains and washed into the plateau. However, it certainly still acts like sand--forming dunes and supporting grasses and wildlife. I didn't try it but people also use it as snow and will toboggan down the dunes (this is an approved use of the park).

This layout is based on a Pinterest layout I saved. I was torn with how to scrapbook these pages and decided that I would think about "sands" as a beach and went through my beach/tropical board for inspiration. The blue and white really seemed to fit nicely with the photos and I was quite happy with the results. I used paper from the "Cool Serenity" line which CM had a few years ago.

After the visitor center, I stopped at a nature trail along a boardwalk. It was hot and sunny but there were a lot of great sights along the walk.

This layout is based on a 1-2-3 sketch by Noreen Smith. I rarely do this but I actually copied her sample EXACTLY. What I added to the layout was the dots down the left side and across the top of the right page. These were made using the new CM Dot Pens. These create different size dots depending on how long you press. I probably should be more tolerant of "white space" on my pages but I just felt that there needed to be something along those edges.

Happy Trails part 13--Fort Selden

 After leaving the Farm and Ranch Museum, I headed to my next stop on the El Camino Real stamp path: Fort Selden. It was built around the time of the Civil War to provide safety and peace in the area. It must have worked because by 1895 it was no longer needed and was abandoned. Only remnants of the buildings remain.

The impetus for this layout is the border at the top of the left page. It was a pin I had saved on Pinterest. The paper is from an older CM line called "Reminisce"--one of my favorite lines. The tones and background designs work for so much of my travels. The letter block in the top left is supposed to say "US"--something I cut from my heritage Paper Loft word sheets. But I decided that a couple of judiciously placed dots would create U. S. and it worked perfectly!

Happy Trails Part 12--Blacksmithing

 The last entry for the Farm and Ranch Museum is the Blacksmith Shop. I also added the photos of the horses I took on my barn tour. 

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The layout is based on an older 1-2-3 sketch by Noreen Smith (May 2013). The concept is simple--use 4x6 blocks alternating with photos across the bottom and a title at the top. I varied that by making the left bottom all photos (evenly spaced). For the top row on the left, I had a photo paper with the horse face on it and I was able to cut it to 6x4--of course it's in the wrong direction but really--sketches are idea starters, so don't feel like you can't make an adjustment. I added a journal box and again spaced it so that there wasn't too much empty space on either side. The top is another photo paper from a farm/western pad I picked up. I cut it in half and placed the horseshoes across the top. The only thing left to fill was the cardstock fillers on the right. I cut a border sticker in half and layered it across the middle. That tied it all together. 

Happy Trails Part 11--Down on the Farm

After touring the main building I headed outside. There was another building specifically for the dairy industry and I took the opportunity to take a selfie of myself "milking" a cow.

The inspiration for this layout is from a sketch from my online scrapbook class so I can't show you. The theme was to use up the smaller cards/mats that are leftover from Project Life or from some of the mat packs that come with the Creative Memories kits. I did get to use 3 on this one: Top left was a mat from a farming page I bought. The "Dairy Barn" below it is actually a photo trimmed to the right size. On the right page, I used a piece of red gingham paper and added stickers to resemble a mat. Finally, I used a journaling box bottom right.

One of the highlights of visiting is a guided tour (in a golf cart!) of the outdoor exhibits. After the tour though you can walk back and look closer at the animals. Which I of course did!

This layout is from the same class as the first, but a different sketch. In this one, I did use one mat, but because of how I took my photos, I was able to cut them down to the mat size. The background papers are some that I've had for a while and never thought I'd find the right photos for a layout. The bright blue sky and fencing just seemed to pull this together though. I added the ribbon of bandana paper across the middle as an accent to break up the busy pattern. A few button stickers and cow stickers and the page was done quickly!

One more layout of the barnyard. There were so many different sheep, they got their own pages! I'm not completely sure I have them all labeled correctly but I tried!

This layout is based on the monthly 1-2-3 sketch from Noreen Smith which you can see on her blog. I used a piece of paper from the Painted Prairie pack (the special advisor-only pack I mentioned a few weeks ago). When I make the cuts for this page, I do it a little differently. Her first cut says to fold the paper in half and use scissors to cut along the fold. If you, like me, don't make the best free-hand cuts, and you don't mind a remnant fold in the paper, fold in half and then use your trimmer to cut from the long side through the point. You'll still get a 1/2 page triangle, it just has a crease in the middle. I'm ok with that though. 

For the sheep, I used an older CM punch that is a scalloped circle and another micro-flower punch to make the fluffy white components of the lambs. The faces are small ovals cut from black cardstock. The legs are using a Stampin' Up punch called "Word Window". I like that punch for so much more than title bars! The idea came from this Pinterest link. Sometimes it's fun to make objects from punches. Sometimes it's easier to just cut them from the Cricut though!

Happy Trails part 10--Back in the Saddle

 Another display in the museum focused on a local saddle maker who was quite famous for his intricate leather work. His tools were all arranged as if he were coming in to work on a piece. Several saddles were on display as well. One area was set aside for children to practice during supervised classes.

This layout was part of the Club Scrap Western kit. I bought that pack knowing that I had quite a few western theme trips to cover and the paisley background worked perfectly with the intricate saddle designs.