Misery Loves Company--that's why it's such a crowded state

We're going to take a little detour from my travels to add to my 50-states album. First up is a page from July 2022 when I made my first visit to Missouri by attending the NPTC Convention. The host park was the Gateway Arch but we also visited a few other parks such as Grant's home. The Arch was my 150th park so it was great to be able to hit that milestone with friends. There was a LOT to see inside the visitor center in addition to our car ride up to the top of the Arch. The ride itself is memorable. If you've been there, you know what I mean!

The idea for this page came from a kit. While I didn't buy it, I did pin the image so I could recreate it myself. I don't remember exactly what paper pack this background page came from but the ombre effect was a great way to make it look like sky. I made this well before I had photos so it was serendipitous that my photos matched so well. The bottom border is a punch from CM. I used the CM Custom Cutting System to make an oval ring and then trimmed it to resemble the arch. It's not quite the same but you get the effect. The cut-out of the state shape turned into a perfect journal box. Since it was black cardstock, I used a white gel pen. The state name is in stickers. Amazingly I had enough to spell out the state without "manufacturing" letters!

On the Green

My next NPS trip was on July 7, 2018. I had a free day for a Saturday so decided to pick up the Delaware capitol stamp as well as re-visit First State. While I had been to Dover previously, I had not focused on the actual "Green" which is a large park-like space in front of the Old Courthouse. They have guided tours on the weekends so I timed my visit to see one. It was a warm day but we were able to keep to the shade as much as possible. 

Does this layout look familiar? That's because I posted it a few weeks ago when it was made. Check this blog post for details on the creation.

The tour continued through several blocks. We didn't go inside any of the buildings (other than a gift shop) so I only have the doors and porches for many of the buildings. We did get to visit a cemetery and while that is probably not someone's idea of a great tour, I love to look at old gravestones. 

For this layout, I used a sketch from my summer class. As I posted when done, I felt like I "fought" with these photos for several days before figuring out how to make them work. I kept the Avocado cardstock as a base to have continuity between the first and second layouts. The contrasting paper is from Paper Loft. Since I doubled the sketch I couldn't use one of the large triangles for mats, so I used similarly toned paper scraps from Paper Loft. The stickers were from a Serenity sticker pack from CM.

That's Wild!

We finish up the trip to Minnesota with a few pages of the Coon Rapids Dam which is a little farther north of the city. On the west shore (where I started) the stamp is located at the nature center and I spent a little time observing the goldfinches and other birds from the giant picture windows. 

I made this layout for my 2023 summer class that I'm taking with Meggan Jacks and Tessa Chapple. This was a kick-off crop and they shared this idea for blocks and small photos. This worked out well because the birds didn't take up much of the photo space so I could crop them to about 3" square to fit the blocks. I left one large photo for emphasis. The paper is an Old CM kit. I thought the pastel colors were a good backdrop for the photos. The embellishments were from a different pack but they matched the colors well and had the Springtime sentiments I was looking for.

I was able to cross the river here (the motivation is that there is a stamp on the OTHER side so....) On my journey across I saw 2 unique things. First is this duck with a blue bill. I thought I was seeing things but this was real! It turns out to be called a Ruddy Duck. It was the only one I saw in the group.

I made this layout for the June 2023 CM Virtual Crop. Scroll to Challenge #1 to see the sketch. I decided to make my Ruddy Duck the focus of the page so I chose a blue and orange set of papers that would match his coloring. The scalloped orange is from a pack of decorative cardstock that Old CM released. I had just found the pack at a scrapbook yard sale so the timing was perfect! I know that the stickers are geese and not ducks (did you just go and see that for yourself?) You'll notice that I "turned" the sketch. But as a square, it's so symmetrical that it doesn't really matter which way the photos go, though it does look better if they are facing the same direction.

My last set of photos is more about the dam (and you can see the walkway as it stretches across the Mississippi). Flowing water not only makes for good photos, but it's also just beautiful to watch! As I walked across, I noticed a snag that created some additional interest in the water patterns. But I was also amazed that it didn't move! You would think that the power of the water would push it over the edge, but it didn't! 

This layout was the OTHER kick-off crop sketch from the summer class I mentioned above. I used the final scraps from the Deep Blue paper. I liked that the laser border could be turned vertically and mirror the falling water. Because the 6x4 photos do not need to be trimmed, this layout came together very quickly. I substituted one of the 4x3 photos for a journal box. This was the last page of the album. It is actually 1/2 of the sketch. The right page would be turned 90 degrees for vertical photos with the smaller photos at the bottom. But this was all I needed and it worked perfectly!

Bonus Post--What Lies Beneath

Hello and welcome to another bonus post as I play along with Lasting Memories Challenges. I'm using this month's sketch challenge to finish off some pages of a visit to Hopewell Furnace National Historic Site in 2018. You'll see more of this visit soon. In the meantime, here are the photos. 

I wanted to make this as surprising for my reader as it was for me, so I put the outside of the lovely little shed first. Underneath, you can see that I walked into a dirty, dusty tool shed!

Here is a photo of the sketch they posted.

I chose Paper Loft papers for this sketch. I had a remnant with a large striped pattern at the bottom reminiscent of the pattern in the sketch so that saved a bit of time putting it all together. I added just a hint of red since there is red in the shed's roof and trim. Mostly I stuck to the greens and browns. Another scrap I had included those medallions. I used a circle punch to make individual elements and sprinkled them across the page. The title is also from Paper Loft's quote pages.

Here you can see the lifted flap. I do love using Peekaboo Pockets from Creative Memories.

Outside Mill City

 These photos are from the top viewing platform of the Mill City museum. Again, you can see the scorch marks from previous fires and the remnants of the original building walls. Nearby is the St. Anthony's Lock and Dam. I took photos from here but it's closed in the winter (April is still winter--see previous posts) so I didn't bother going to the visitor center.

This layout was made for the CM virtual Crop in June 2023. Look at this page and scroll to layout #4. I liked this layout because the wavy papers in the middle reminded me of the river. that's why I chose a peach color for the edges and blue in the middle (look closely, that blue paper ALSO has a wavy pattern running through it! I added a few stickers from the Travel Log collection and a couple from a very OLD CM travel pack. I used up a couple of photo corners as well to highlight a few photos (2 corners each).

Inside Mill City

My next visit in Minneapolis was to the Mill City Museum. This location hosts a Mississippi NRRA stamp as it backs up to St. Anthony Lock and Dam. For a long time, this area had been THE center for flour milling in the US, partly because of the massive water power coming off the river. For that reason, I'm including a tour of the inside of the building. There is an interesting movie about the area which feels sort of like you are in an elevator and you move floor to floor. In reality, I think the dioramas and movie screens move up and down. On the main floor are some excellent exhibits about flour from harvesting to processing to baking. Love the giant box of Bisquick!

This layout is based on a CM Virtual Crop from October 2021. I used a paper pack called Baked with Love which was free to my customers if they spent $250 with me. CM now includes some sort of embellishment--either tags, stickers or die-cuts--with the free packs. They change each quarter. I made this while away at my weekend crop and it was a good thing I had these on hand as I had forgotten to bring my folder of food scrapbook items. 

This is part of the exhibit focused on the milling process. You can see one of the grinding heads on the right page as well as grain elevators. 

This layout is somewhat based on the May 2023 CM Virtual Crop sketch #4. This month CM focused on Fast-to-Fabulous pages so all 4 sketches were double-page layouts. Again, I was at the crop house so I needed to use what I brought and the best choice turned out to be papers from 2 different kits. On the left, I had previously cut a circle from the Picture Perfect travel kit (a special kit from a few years ago). I backed that with some paper scraps. On the right is a SUPER old CM page from when they first introduced the concept of pre-printed layouts. However, there was a strip of foreign clocks. So turning to the sketch, I Covered those and any gaps on the far left with 2 strips of coordinating paper (also scraps). I did twist a photo as suggested in the sketch on the left. I replaced 2 photos with larger embellishments on the right (camera die-cut and an arrow tag). Using the title die-cut completed my paper pack! Feels so good to use up stock!

The most interesting part of the tour was finding out that one problem with milling flour is that it is flammable! And there were many fires over the years. One in particular burned not only its own mill but 3 or 4 nearby ones. You can still see the scorch marks on the walls!

This is a layout I made for a class I took and I cannot show you the sketch. The left side was to be a flower so I tried to take the technique and make it look like the explosion described above (and on the layout). The small "v" looking bits are remnants of a punch (punch poop as some say) and I was trying to make it look like flour was flying through the air. I had some paper from the fireman kit so I was able to introduce flames and the fireman's helmet and badge. It's not my best work but I think it is effective in telling the story.

Let's Just Go To The Lobby

Another stamping stop is the Mississippi River Visitor Center which is inside a museum in Minneapolis. Luckily you do not need to buy admission to the museum to get to the visitor center. It's a small space with a little bit of information about the river. There is a cool green screen to create a postcard image of yourself at the visitor center where you can choose the background. Given the snow of this week, I chose the winter photo. Outside the museum you can see a bit of the river but there are more interesting views to come!

This layout is based on the August 2022 Power Hour layout from Meggan and Tessa. I used the Ice Blue tonal pack from Creative Memories. They issue a new Tonal collection each quarter and they are quite handy for completing pages that don't necessarily have an obvious theme. The pack had a print that reminded me of a river and the river border punch helped carry that theme across the pages. The matching stickers for the tonal collections are somewhat generic but I was able to find several word stickers that matched the layout. I used one photo spot for a journaling box pulled from a winter collection with the same tones. The other benefit of the tonal collection is that it matches our design papers so you can extend the use of those kits!