Great Western Journey Part 1--Fort Laramie

Our first park stop on the trip was Fort Laramie. We had quite an adventure GETTING there (just remember to follow the directions on the park website and NOT the GPS or you too will enjoy the rutted dirt road path to the park. And possibly get stopped by cattle moving across the road.) Fort Laramie is an important historic site as it was both a trading post and a military installation. 

This layout is based on this sketch from Creative Memories October 2022 Virtual Crop. I organize my papers by theme so I pulled my "Western" folder out and found the Wide Open Places from Creative Memories this summer. The wood-grained background sets off the myriad of entry plaques and signs. The middle is the Field Fence border punch that coordinates so well. All of those items are currently available on my CM store site (see right column). The sketch calls for a halved circle to augment the photos. I chose instead to cut a journal box in half that had a diamond-shaped opening. That left some space to mount my very old CM stickers.

Fort Laramie was also one of the stops on the Pony express. Those signs matched the beginning photos of our first building (even before we got to the visitor center) which was a calvary barracks. We could see through the windows for some of the rooms and could stop at the doorways for the larger barracks rooms.

This is another Virtual Crop sketch from October. I continued using the Wide Open Places papers. I "gutted" the 2 background papers and just turned the inside square over to provide 2 contrasting colors. I love the horse paper as the accent strips! The kit contained the western themed journal box and stickers to finish off the layout.

Is it a Loop or a Journey?

 Our next few months will follow the journey Jim and I took in the summer of 2017 to the NPTC convention in the Rocky Mountain Region (the host park is Mount Rushmore). Jim tends to name the big trips (you'll remember Connie's Northern Migration? That was his brainchild). And I really thought this one was called the Great Western Loop. But my notes and photo albums call it a Journey. So we'll pick one and use that as we move through the pages. 

For the kick-off page, I based this on an idea I pinned. It says Project Recipe, but it was created by a fellow consultant so it's not an authentic Project Recipe. It does use up a calendar page and I have a few of those in my stash to use up. I used scrap papers from the Scenic Route collection (and scraps are about all I have left!). I cut the squares as directed and arranged them so the colors were mixed across the page. The directions leave a couple of blocks open and I used those to handwrite the title and date. The top and bottom are filled with laser-cut borders from the pack. The top one reflects our long drive. The bottom was for all the farms we passed in the midwest. I hardly ever put more than a title on kick-off pages, but I had no idea how else to incorporate that unigrid for the Midwest. Even though this is a Rocky Mountain Region convention, we also saw sites in the Midwest so I decided to mount it to the page with a large memorabilia pocket.

The next 2 pages are, as usual, the itinerary of the trip. I had two other random photos of our flight out (doesn't Jim look cute?) that I wanted to include. I also mapped our route on Google Maps and took a screenshot that I printed on photo paper. 

The background pages are a fold-over technique. I taught a class one weekend where we made an entire pack of decorative papers into layouts by folding them in various ways and mounting them on cardstock. I wanted to use these 2 as they had the clouds and I thought it perfect for the flight photos. I added the borders across the top. Both are border-maker cartridges and given how much I travel, they are well-used. I thought the Journey of a Thousand Miles quote worked perfectly for this page. When mounting vellum, I use the CM Vellum adhesive. When you rub over the vellum to adhere it to the page, the adhesive disappears. A few more random travel stickers from my stash completed the layout.

End of the Line

Our tour stepped into an alley next to the courthouse--one I never realized existed! We heard stories of the free blacks who were entrepreneurs in the area. I took some time to marvel at the architecture of the courthouse but that wasn't a part of the tour's discussion.

This page is based on a CM Sketch from the August 2021 virtual crop. I did not include the circle in the upper right corner but did combine 2 sheets of paper and a border sticker to decorate the page. If you open the CM page you'll see that you can also take this sketch in a "fancier" direction if you want to. I used a very subdued palette as well as a touch on the page due to the theme.

We stopped at another cemetery. There were monuments to people extending over several hundred years. I enjoy cemetery art so photographed some of the monuments that really have nothing to do with the UGRR experience. 

This layout is from a sketch from another blogger that I follow--Cheryl Even. She makes sketches for her albums and posts them for others to use, so she's one of my inspirations. She also posts on the Scrapbook.com forums and I've followed her on there for a time. I turned the sketch so that the paper remnants (and this page is REALLY scrap booking) were across the top. I used a remnant of a sticker across the bottom and a few random sticker embellishments as well.

The last stop on our tour was most unusual--it was in the parking garage entryway. This building was originally a train depot and was a transition place for those moving on toward Canada on the UGRR.

This page is one half of a layout I made in a Paper Loft class. The kit had many mats included and we arranged them across the middle of the page. I thought the "Unexpected Directions" title was perfect given the odd location for the talk. The 2 blue squares on the right were to be for photos, but I chose to use them as journal boxes. Again, not much other decoration on the page given the theme.

Above Ground on the UGRR

Our tour group assembled and we started walking down the hill away from the square. Our first stop is the Thaddeus Stevens house (he helped ensure the passage of the Emancipation Proclamation). This is preserved in the middle of the Lancaster Convention center. The original door and markers are on the outside. We didn't get to go in. Around the corner, you can see the excavated cisterns. They believe they were used not for water, but to hide enslaved people on the UGRR.

This layout is based on a layout that CM posted using Countryside Comfort (the first layout on the page). I did not have the exact paper pack but found that the Croptoberfest papers from that year worked just as well. I did not originally save this design to my Pinterest board though. I saved the borders on the layout below. But as that didn't work with this configuration of photos, I scrolled up the page and realized that the fence would be a perfect addition to this home story. 

Another stop on our tour was a church that I had passed every day going from work to home. This church allowed enslaved people to worship with the rest of the congregation and for the times, that was quite progressive. Numerous historical markers adorn the church walls.

This page lent itself to the original borders that I saved (second on the page from the link above). The tones of the Croptoberfest paper match the brick quite well and the rest of the colors accent the deep red tones. While there is a third layout on the CM site, I'm not sure I have enough materials left to complete it. However, it's saved on Pinterest so there's always a possibility!

Bonus post--Lasting Memories Challenge 626

 Hi all! I thought I would do something different today. I'm working on an album and the challenge from Lasting Memories worked out perfectly for the photos. So hot off the presses is this page from the Minuteman Missle National Historic Site. You'll see more about this visit when I post the rest of the trip (Starting December 16th). Until then, enjoy this page of the first photos of the bunker where servicemen sat waiting to launch nuclear missiles.

This page features multiple Creative Memories packs as well as a few other scraps. The base page is from the Stars and Spirit designer pack from this summer. It's still available as well as the stickers (a few of which are in the circle clusters). The title was made from the Paper House Let Freedom Ring sticker page. 

Hometown Tourist

I hope you all had a great Thanksgiving! I want to say how thankful I am that you read my blog. If you have any comments or suggestions, please drop me a line!

I know a couple of ladies from the Park Travelers Club that live close to me so we decided to have an outing together and chose a walking tour of Lancaster focusing on the Underground Railroad. Before we got started I took the opportunity to photograph some places I've been to frequently such as the Penn Square statue of soldiers and the Central Market. 

This page was a kit from Scrapbook Concierge. It's another example of pages that I am glad to have completed, and that I will NEVER do again. It took a while to figure out which photos would easily (not sure that's the right adjective but we'll stick with it for now) morph into the letters in "Lancaster". It took quite a while to fussy cut and apply the photos to the letters. I did get lucky in that one photo could spread across up to 2 letters if positioned correctly.

A Very Special Trip to Washington DC

 In May 2017, Jim and I heard that Ken Burns was going to be the speaker at an event held at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. We enjoyed many of his documentaries so we made a memorable trip to see him and were able to get tickets to the public section of the audience. The trip started with the Metro ride to the US  Navy Memorial. We walked along the mall to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial and passed a few sites. I enjoyed seeing the Navy practice for their part in the parade that afternoon.

This layout is a Project Recipe from Creative Memories made specifically for this paper pack--Festive Fourth. I taught a class to my customers. There is a recipe available for just about every new pack of paper. If you would like a copy of the recipe, let me know through email!

I never knew that the Memorial Wall could be edited. This occasion (which I believe happens every year on Memorial Day) honors any newly identified remains (adding names to the wall) and changing some of the icons from "Missing" to "Killed in Action". 

The left page is wallpaper using one of several pages I have for "Memorial Day". While I don't have a lot of events specific to that day, the reverse side is more "generically patriotic" and I will likely use it for similar events. The right page is an 8 1/2x11 pocket page. You'll see in the next photo that I included the program from the day. For this side, I added our tickets (one showing each side) as well as the journaling. The background paper here is an 8 1/2 x 11 sheet from my stash. Nice to be able to use those up.

The ceremony was beautiful. Not only did we hear from Ken Burns and his partner Lynn Novick, but there were moving presentations by family members, and the honor guards. When the ceremony was over we walked back to the Metro station. That route was along the parade route for the DC Memorial Day parade and we dawdled enough to enjoy many of the performances, marching bands and the veterans celebrated through floats and honor cars. Those pages are available in the full album if you want to see them!

The left page is the other side of the pocket and the other side of the 8 1/2 x 11 paper. I couldn't have asked for better wallpaper there! The right side page I made at a crop. The lesson was to make the "crazy circles" along the bottom. This paper is from a Fresh Fusion pack. I cut 3 circles from different papers and stacked them, then made some "crazy cuts". You rearrange the segments to get the mish-mash effect. Those also could have been places to highlight other photos, memorabilia, or embellishments.