Summer Road Trip Part 3--Lighthouse in the Dark

I made it to the beach in Atlantic City and spent several wonderful days with my in-laws. Luckily, our trip fell during a full moon and in the summer Cape Lookout holds special night climbs since there is extra "illumination". So my husband Jim and I signed up. We drove to Harker's Island where we caught a ferry to the lighthouse. We walked to the beach for some moon photos and then returned to the lighthouse. Rangers were stationed at the bottom of the entrance to talk about the lighthouse and the job of the keepers. 

This layout is all my own idea! I knew that I wanted to use the Graphic 45 By the Sea collection as I still had quite a bit in my stash. I looked at the pieces and started planning how I could arrange them to highlight our visit. I did a bit of paper tearing and some fussy cutting and came up with the layout you see. I entered this in a Scrapbook.com challenge on their forums and won the monthly prize of more Graphic 45 items. Since I know I have a ton of lighthouses to show later, it won't be a problem using them up!

The event included the opportunity to climb the lighthouse. I was not sure that I would be able to do it, but I had talked to a ranger the day before at the Beaufort visitor center and she assured me that I would be OK. I just would want to pace myself and stop periodically. I did that and am happy to say that I MADE IT! Jim and I took a few photos from the top but since it was completely dark out it is hard to make out much detail.

I made this layout as part of a Summer "MotherLOAD" class (LayOut A Day). We were to create a page based on a photo prompt from the leader which had a lot of tall trees in it. I thought about it and decided that the trees reminded me of the lighthouse and so I put this page together. I had a scrap of brick paper so I used that to anchor the right-side photos. Because Cape Lookout is painted in black and white I thought the mosaic background would be a good base. The red elements are from a travel pack from CM a few years ago. I feel lucky to have found that quote for the middle. Not only does it capture the event with my husband but it has the up and down arrows reflecting our climb!

Summer Road Trip part 2--Petersburg

After Tredegar, I did make an additional stop for a stamp and toured the Henricus Historical Park. The stamp was for the John Smith Chesapeake Trail and it's a tangential connection at best. There are MANY pages of that visit and I didn't want to overload the blog. Similarly, the evening before Petersburg included a stop at the Blandsburg cemetery next to the park where I learned about Victorian Era grave decorations. It was a fascinating talk and if you see it offered, take the tour. But there are tons of photos of gravestones too and I thought the blog would be better without them. If I ever run out of ideas to post (HA!) maybe I'll return to those pages.  Let's turn instead to the next stop on my trip--a return to Petersburg.

I started my Petersburg visit with a return to the visitor center and then walked the Mortar Loop trail. This was the Confederate line with a variety of cannons.

For this layout, I wanted to use the canon/field paper on the left because it matched my visit. the secret is that this is really a page meant for Gettysburg. I taped the Petersburg sign over the label though because that is the only thing that really makes it a Gettysburg page. The journal box is a card from the Eastern National scrapbook pack. The right page has 2 more stickers from that pack on the small journal box. Nothing fancy on the right--just wallpaper with an old CM brown page. I was hoping the compass watermark looked a bit like canon wheels.

Along the trail, I got to see the "Dictator" (well, not the one actually used in the siege, but a similar one from that era). I was impressed with the size of the mortar! My next stop was out at City Point to see Grant's Headquarters. I toured the home and then went to see a ranger talk on the use of the telegraph. There are 2 rivers nearby and the views were lovely. But I had to head down to the beach so I didn't stay too long.

I'm not completely sure where the idea for this layout came from. It isn't a 1-2-3 based on the amount of paper used, and it's not a familiar sketch. So perhaps I had my own idea! It happens sometimes. What I can tell you is that the base is a 12x12 sheet of brown cut in half and used to anchor the bottom of both pages. I used a rather old piece of CM paper that had a printed border on one side. however, it wasn't 12" in both directions (this was the "perfect fit" paper for the CM pages that were not QUITE 12x12). I cut it "across the grain" and created the 2 border strips. The blue tones were a nice contrast to the browns. I punched 2 borders with the grass punch to fill in the bottom. Very little embellishment on these pages--just 2 stickers that came from a Scrapbook Customs sticker pack. I have lots of these as they are the same for every park and I bought at least 2 dozen packs!

Summer Road Trip Part 1--Richmond

 In September 2016 I had quite a road trip. My in-laws had reserved 2 weeks at the beach in North Carolina, and the Health Professions Network was scheduled to be in Louisville around the same time. We'll spend a few months going through all the National Park components of the trip. There are 2 full albums and of course many more layouts you won't see here as they are either family events or non-NPS sites. 

This is the kick-off page for the first volume. It doesn't say volume 1 because I naively thought that I would get everything in one album. The base page is a fast-to-fabulous page from one of the travel packs. The title "Life is an Adventure" was pre-printed on the page. I added a strip of brown cardstock as a sign base and then cut a few directional words from patterned paper and found a few travel stickers that would describe a road trip. The old station wagon sticker and suitcase were the final touches. I based the page on this layout I pinned.

You can see from my itinerary that I drove thousands of miles! My first stop was in Richmond where I revisited the Maggie Walker National Historic Site. I had time to watch the movie in the visitor center and get stamps but didn't tour the house again. I doubt that much has changed inside the house.

The left page is based on this page that I saved on Pinterest. I changed up the components of the top border but it has the same feel. I thought that gave me enough room to print my itinerary. On the right, I decided to make a border from a sketch I had saved from Creative Memories. Follow this link and scroll to the third sketch to see the suggestion. I used some Paper Loft papers and a few stickers from my Heritage stash to finish the border and I love how it turned out.

While in Richmond I stopped by the Tredegar Iron Works which is the main visitor center for the area. I didn't go to any of the outlying battlefields on this trip. Tredegar is always a nice place to stop and see the artifacts. This time I focused more on the outdoor elements of the building.

For this page, I pulled an old sketch I had saved from CM's 2017 Virtual Crop. While I kept the borders at the top and bottom, I didn't add the title to the middle of the page. The borders were made with 3" strips of brick paper and a lattice border maker punch which I cut in half. The vintage train added to the overall brown/sepia tone (even though these are full-color photos).

Blaze a Trail?

After leaving the Best Farm at Monocacy, I headed back toward home. I decided to stop at Catoctin Mountain Park along the way to get some stamps. I asked the Ranger if there was a short trail I could follow. I've stamped here before but really wanted to "claim" a visit. He recommended a short hike to an old site that had been used for moonshining! The path followed a small stream and there were nature trail signs along explaining the flora and fauna (if you consider insects fauna) of the area. 

This layout is based on a Creative Memories sketch from June 2021. I used the Art Nouveau collection with its earthy and leafy prints. I used a newer border maker cartridge for the left side border, but most of it was covered with photos and the brochure, unfortunately. I thought I was being clever by adding the XXX on the bottles since we are talking moonshine. 

The BEST Jerry, the BEST!

 In June 2016, Monocacy National Battlefield held an open house. Literally--one of the farmhouses (called the Best Farm) was opened for special tours. It's only open 1-2 days a year so I took advantage of the opportunity to visit. And get stamps. They had some reenactors in period costumes and some ranger talks in the barn. I spent a nice day wandering around the displays.

I was playing along with the Creative Memories Virtual crop and based this on sketch #12. This was another mystery box weekend and the contents (Shabby Chic Rose) had a perfect rustic fit for the farmhouse. The box also included the medallion flower punch and I used a series of them to create the border between the top and bottom sections of the layout. You'll notice I doubled the sketch and repeated the process on the right as well. The title sticker on the right is from a very old pack of CM paper but I thought the sentiment worked well with the theme.

In order to use all the photos I wanted on the layout, I included 2 peekaboo pockets on the right page.

My second set of pages focused on the living history encampment featuring a physician. I can spend a long time looking over the medical history items. The ether bottle was a new one for me.

This layout is also based on a sketch from the virtual crop. This time sketch #11. The paper is from the Homestead collection--another pack that works well with historical and rustic themes. The overall technique is a series of 12" strips (varying widths) and some border stickers to separate the areas. There is another peekaboo pocket here. I have the contents of the lean-to tent as a close up once you lift the photo of the tent. I thought that was clever.

Pretty in Pink

 The last stop on the Ranger Tour was the Jefferson Memorial. I found it difficult to get a decent picture of the statue because there is little light coming in. As you can see in the left photo it was a bit of a cloudy day, and while that's normally great for photography, not when the statue in question is under a dome with narrow spaces between the columns. The ranger went so quickly from monument to monument that I did not have time to gather stamps on the way. After the tour was over I retraced my steps back through the tidal basin so I could get the stamps at all the gift shops. That made for a LOT of walking (over 20,000 steps on my pedometer!) Luckily I could hop on a red bus to take me to Union Station for my trip home.

This layout is from a pajama party layout. I chose to use pink for the Cherry Blossoms on the unigrid, even though it clearly was NOT Cherry Blossom time along the tidal basin. I don't get much chance to use pink paper so it was a nice way to dig into my stash. The 2 pink background papers are from the Blend and Bloom pink pack. I used aqua as the accent color. The class taught us how to make the borders to divide up the page. I wish I had lowered the left border a little so that it was more in line with the strip under the statue. I added some of the smaller stickers from my DC stash that either highlighted the Jefferson Memorial or Cherry Blossoms. The small sticker on the bottom left of the journal box was fading into the background so I mounted it on a spare piece of aqua.

No Foolin! It's back to FDR!

Happy April Fool's Day! I guess no need for an extra post since it's a Friday. Today we'll cover a bit more of my ranger talk along the Tidal Basin. Our next stop was the FDR memorial. The ranger is quite a character and continually mugged with the various statues. But he was quite knowledgeable and I enjoyed hearing his perspective on FDR's 4 terms. 

Although I completed this in May, I used a sketch from my January class. I wanted to pull out the oxidized look of the statues and plaques so I chose a piece of paper from "Painted Harvest" (which I think was a bonus pack of paper--it only had one of each design included). The green is probably supposed to be a leaf, but it gives a nice base for the antique look. The other thing to highlight was the stone so I chose another piece of the Stone paper pack. Black borders define the edges of the page. The sketch was set to have all the photos on the decorative pages. This is another instance of using that as a background and adding my photos regardless of shape. The 2 vertical photos do not detract from the layout even though they cross the black borders. However, if you would like everything to be "between the lines" you can cut the strips in the middle wider so that everything is tucked away.

FDR's second term is marked by the great tragedies of the depression and dustbowl. The wall behind the ranger highlights all of the programs he created in his "New Deal". They include faces and hands of those helped by the programs. It's the first time a ranger explained this mural to me and it really highlighted the chamber. Before that, I thought it was a random decoration. Though I should know that the NPS doesn't do "random" too often.

This layout  is based on a May class sketch. It called for 2 decorative circles and a wide strip through the middle. I chose the same paper pack as the first 2 pages--Painted Harvest and Stone. I took one 12" laser-cut border strip and cut it into 3 sections to use as embellishments around the page. The title comes from the Memoirs and Memories sticker pack. Though it has gears on it, I think the sentiment fits perfectly.

The 3rd term focuses on WWII of course. The second statue of Roosevelt, though much larger, shows how much he's aged. His knee and Fala get a lot of touches so they don't have the oxidation that the rest of the statues do.

This layout is based on a PJ party that I attended. I cannot show you the sketch, but it focused on building the border on the left. Cutting the triangles and diamonds was a little tricky but using some scraps from the Memoirs and Memories pack as well as the Archiver pack, I was able to get a nice "army" feel to the page. I added the stickers of the WWII hats and helmets to provide context. Not a lot of embellishment but it sets the tone nicely.