2018 Convention Part 6--Religious Freedom

Touro Synagogue in Newport was the next stop on the bus trip. This is designated as a National Historic Site but is not one of the NPS units, most likely because it is still an active congregation. The history of the community is one of perseverance and faith. I do recommend taking the guided tour to hear the entire story. The most notable occurrence in the congregation's history is their concern for religious persecution after the colonies won their independence. Their letter to Washington and his reply is reprinted today to demonstrate what religious tolerance should be for everyone. Copies are available in the visitor center. When I visit active houses of worship, regardless of the faith, I tend not to take a lot of interior photos as it can be considered disrespectful. In this temple, they did ask us to refrain from photos until the end and to take photos only from the rear of the building. The vertical photo on the left page is my photo. The remaining images are all postcards that I bought in the gift shop.

This layout is based on one of the CM Virtual Crop sketches that I saved. The paper and stickers are from a Judaic pack that I purchased from CM a few years ago. When it was first sold, two of my fellow advisors held a class to help those unfamiliar with the Jewish faith to understand what the designs were and why they were included in the pack. I'm very glad I took that class as I felt much better choosing the papers and stickers to correspond to the sketch. Now the red matches the photos but is really supposed to represent pomegranates for one of the holidays. You don't see the fruit on the tonal paper so I think it worked well for a non-holiday layout. A special thanks to the Rabois (friends of mine from the NPTC) who also looked over this after I completed it and assured me that I did not inadvertently make a faux pas on any religious icon usage.

2018 Convention Part 5--Sew what?

One of the highlights of the tour is the machine shop. Not only was water used to power the looms, but to run all of the power tools as well. And the tools were HUGE! Saws and drills the size of a human body! That one water wheel turned a series of pulleys and drives so that the power was portioned to where it was needed. 

You might remember this layout as it was posted for one of the Lasting Moments Challenges. Refer to this post to refresh your memory of the layout. Oh, and Jim says he was definitely NOT loafing 😁.

My last stop was in the weaving rooms. I had never seen such complicated looms. They could make argyle patterns, tube-shaped cloth, and a wide variety of other sizes and shapes to fit the needs of the everyday housewife or workman. And again, it all worked thanks to the water power nearby. I wonder if we will return to that as a power source for industry with the problems we have with fossil fuels. Not that there were no environmental issues with water, but at least it didn't produce as many air pollutants.

I'm fairly certain I followed a sketch for this layout, but I cannot find a copy of it. I do know that the papers are from the Paper Loft Euphoria collection. I had saved the diamond papers specifically for these pages as I wanted to highlight the argyle photo. I made this at a crop in Lancaster and while I had taken the rope border maker cartridge for the nautical aspect (those pages are coming soon) it certainly worked for the weaving room as well! The embellishments are mixed from several different collections.

2018 Convention Part 4--What Once Was Modern

 Our bus trip headed to Pawtucket, RI to see the Slater Mill. This is one of the large weaving mills found along the rivers in the Northeast. They've gathered several buildings into the complex and we split into a couple of groups to take a guided tour. 

I created this layout based on an idea in my summer class. I saved this photo from when I originally posted my take on the challenge but I have added punched fence borders along the bottom. I didn't have them with me at the crop when I made the pages. I used Eureka papers from the Paper Loft. The word art is theirs as well but the rest of the embellishments come from an older Croptoberfest pack.

The site covers the history of the area for several hundred years and shows a variety of daily life examples from fancy houses to worker houses. One thing I learned here is that tea was shipped in decorative bricks--there's a sample on the table on the left page. I just assumed everything was loose but it made more sense to compact it to save space. They also went into the weaving process before industrialization. 

The challenge I mentioned above created remnant arcs, so the second part of the challenge was to use them in a follow-up layout. I added a couple of laser-cut borders to finish the pages and more of the Croptoberfest stickers.

2018 Convention Part 3--Well, Well, Well

On Friday Jim and I participated in the club's all-day bus trip. These events are a standard part of our club activities now and offer a way to get to some far-reaching park sites with minimal environmental impact (1 bus rather than 58 cars for example). Our first stop was the Roger Williams National Memorial. I had confused him with Will Rogers and kept thinking this was someone who "never met a man he didn't like". No, Roger Williams is the founder of Rhode Island. The visitor center is sort of small so we split the group in two with one half staying at the site and the other half touring the state capitol up the street, then we switched. My state capital pages won't be part of the blog, but the building itself is quite interesting.

In the visitor center, we watched a movie on the founding of the state. Supposedly he chose this site due to a natural well supplying water for the colony. There is a well in the courtyard but it is symbolic. Roger Williams built the colony on religious tolerance (after getting kicked out of several other puritanical villages). This was even earlier than William Penn's similar concerns when founding Pennsylvania. It's also a premise that found its way into the Declaration of Independence. Truly remarkable and historic.

I made this layout during a summer challenge class. The handout did call for 3 different double-sided pages. I ended up with 3 papers but with the same designs so there was less variety in my cuts. So when I made the layouts, I decided to use them a little more symmetrically, creating wide bands stretching across two pages. The papers are from a very old Croptoberfest kit but I liked the striped paper and floral design. I thought they went well with the garden photos and the heavy yellow presence in the interior photos.

2018 Convention Part 2--Back to School

Our first stop was in Norwich, CT. I had not heard of the Last Green Valley Heritage Corridor until I started planning this trip. The agency protects cultural, historical, and natural heritage in the Connecticut and Massachusetts areas. Our stop at the visitor center was brief. I did enjoy their displays of the historic school furniture but much of it had been turned into a visitor center with racks of brochures of the area. 

It doesn't happen often, but this is a page of my own creation! This uses Graphic 45 papers. I had purchased a sheet and cut it apart to rearrange it onto a base cardstock. I didn't plan this ahead and in hindsight, I wish I had not cut every object from the sheet individually as I could have used more of the larger sections for matting. I did get a little of the yellow/red by turning over a few of the items I wouldn't use on the page. Of course, that means I can't use them on a future page so I'll have to be on the lookout for more of this paper. I've seen a number of old schoolhouses in my travels.

2018 Convention Part 1--title and itinerary

It's time to highlight the 2018 National Park Travelers Club Convention. This trip did not get one of Jim's special monikers because it was really just a long weekend. I had just started a new job and didn't have much vacation time saved up so I minimized my days off. The host park for this convention was New Bedford Whaling. That's a unique concept as it doesn't commemorate just one individual, but an entire industry that was mainly housed in that area. Even if it's a short trip, I still had enough photos to warrant its own album. 

The album cover also has a ship's wheel, so I thought this was a great title page. It's based on this layout from the CM Blog. My first plan was to cut a ship's wheel on the Cricut. However, I was at a crop when it was time to make the page and I didn't have a Cricut available. I did use a Cricut to cut out the letters, but after I returned to my scrap room. 

As I mentioned, this was a long weekend. You can see from the itinerary that it was a total of 4 days. And 2 of them were driving back and forth to Massachusetts from our home north of Philly. And I still grit my teeth remembering the traffic going through Connecticut.

This layout is based on a sketch from Sketches in Thyme's July challenges. The sketch included a place for an 8x10 photo. I took that space and made the itinerary from a large piece of journal paper. Such a short trip that I had MORE than enough space to detail our wanderings. That meant I could add a few larger stickers and die cuts to the bottom. I split a laser-cut border from the CM Automobiles pack to frame the edges of the journal box. The background paper is a page I've had in my collection for YEARS! I was so happy to figure out a way to use it. I still have 1 more piece (as I usually by everything in twos) so be on the lookout for the next usage!

A Girlsie in Boise

 My other new state page is for Idaho. In June 2023 I hosted a meetup for National Parks Across America. While I did not get enough members to make it an official meetup, the 5 of us who got together did have a great experience. We had a ranger talk and then explored several of the overlooks. One couple and I had lunch at a nearby diner before heading on our way. That event is now the 2nd Saturday in June so if you want to join us, check the forums. We are already planning the 2024 event!

I based this page on a layout I found on Pinterest. The background paper on the original layout reminded me of this yellow vacation paper from Old CM. I like the cartoon nature of the paper--it is such a happy design! I used a Cricut to cut the border for the state. While I couldn't make it a frame to my selfie, I was able to use it for the backdrop to one photo and as a journal box as well. The baked potato and title were also cut from the Cricut. The baked potato usually requires some explanation when people look at the page. Hopefully, now that I have a photo of a baked potato next to it, people will figure out what it is supposed to be.