Alligator Alley

I left the Corrigan beach party as I needed to head to Florida for a conference with the Health Professions Network. I had a couple of extra days, so I flew down early and visited some national parks. My first stop was The Everglades. I learned that this park is NOT a swamp as many would have you believe. The water source is continually moving and is in fact one of the slowest-moving and widest rivers anywhere. I learned a lot about the park at the Ernest Coe visitor center. There was a movie as well as a set of displays in the visitor center. I also joined a ranger as he walked around the porch with us pointing out some of the flora and fauna of the area. And that's where I saw my first alligator! (He's by the tree on the left page photo).

For these 2 pages, I returned to wallpaper as a technique. As I sometimes do, I started with the right-hand page. That is one of the Scrapbook Customs papers that I bought (I think I have at least 30 parks represented in my stash). I like that one of my photos from the porch was similar to the background of the paper so that went in the "sky" section of the paper. Because I wanted to keep the Everglades sign I only had enough room for a journal box. For the left page, I needed a place to display the unigrid. CM had recently released some travel pages and Florida was among them. This page with the outline of the state in the corner matched well with the Scrapbook Customs page and I was able to add a few more photos. The alligator embellishment was from the CM pack but the title, camera, and wildlife stickers were from the coordinating Scrapbook Customs sticker pack.

Following Their Footsteps

Jim and I reached the beach! It's not a popular spot for sunbathing so there were many pristine areas. I found a few different sets of animal tracks in the sand. We had the option to do a "loop" for the return trip and we did. Along the way, we saw some interesting trees or perhaps it's early driftwood?

This layout uses paper from Sweet Summer and a sketch from the CM 101 Sketches book (a promo from earlier this year). I can't show you the sketch, but if you have the book it is on page 45. You can see from the photo below that there is an 8 1/2 x 11 pocket page between the 2 pages of the layout. While I used the same background pages, the topics were slightly different, so I didn't mind separating them. The wavy borders are one laser-cut piece that I snipped to the length of the column. The seashells are a border punch from CM. I punched them on ivory-toned paper and then inked them with a bit of brown ink on a dauber to give them some texture. The stickers on the pocket page are from the Eastern National scrapbook kit

While there I took time to complete the Junior Ranger book. Below is a photo of me being sworn in by the rangers.

Because the background paper was so scenic, I chose only to add a couple of stickers from the Junior Ranger sticker book (available at most national park gift stores). The reason I needed the pocket page was the size of the junior ranger book and certificate. 

The Road Least Traveled

While in Rehoboth, Jim and I took a day to drive down to Assateague Island National Seashore. I thought I had been to this park before, and likely I had visited the visitor center, but apparently, most of my time had been spent at Chincoteague. I don't ever recall seeing so many of the native horses, nor of them being so close to the car!

We hiked to one of the beaches along a trail. At one point, they were trying to build a resort in the area and there was residual macadam from the roadway that was to be used to enter the site. The idea was abandoned but the road, or bits of it, remain. You can walk on some parts of it--indeed it is the bulk of the trail we chose. 

This layout is based on a sketch from the CM 101 sketches book (page 104). The sketch calls for a series of diamonds on the left side and when I saw the print on this paper, I knew it was the perfect fit. I believe the background pages are old CM. I didn't purchase them though--my sister and I had taken all of our unused scrapbook supplies to sell at a specialty yard sale earlier this year. This paper didn't sell so I took it for my own stash (I think it was my sister's though it could have been my mother's). I liked the way the blue pulled out the sky and our clothing in the photos. A touch of green matched the grasses as well. There is a 2nd paper that forms the mats for the right side of each page. It keeps a bold pattern from becoming overwhelming. The "Road Trip" die cut and horse sticker are from the Eastern National scrapbook kit.

It Was Once

My next National Park Trip was part of a long vacation in September 2018. Jim's family had planned to go to Atlantic Beach as usual, but a hurricane had ripped through the town just the week before and they were still in cleanup mode. So we hastily researched alternatives and decided to head to Rehoboth. In that area, I chose to refresh my First State stamps from the Ryves Holt House in Lewes, DE. Jim and I took a tour of the building which had served as an inn. Some of the original supports and doors were still in place-something I didn't discover on my first visit 2 years prior. 

But between this trip and today, the house is no longer part of the First State National Historical Park! In March of 2021, this site was removed due to a legal problem. As part of the NPS rules, buildings must be on land owned by the same entity as the structure. Unfortunately, the building is on land owned by the church next door. So until that changes, this is no longer an NPS site! I'm glad I visited it while I could.

This layout is from a kit I purchased from the Paper Loft. I love that their papers have a muted tone to them. It works so well with a variety of historic visits. I thought the tones of this matched the house's red and the wood pieces' browns. It's a simple enough layout to recreate. Just cut 12" strips of paper or cardstock at 7" and 5". Do the same for a piece of patterned paper and mix them so that there are 12" of each per page. I've done something similar on other layouts, sometimes with 2 sheets of decorative paper.

Even Smaller than the Dinkie

Happy New Year to everyone and thanks for joining me for another year of National Park Scrapbook page posts! 

The last layout in the series highlights the smaller trains on display this weekend. In one building the local model railroad groups created a large display. Outside, someone brought their personal-sized yard train and in another building, there were Lego train sets. These were of particular importance to my dad and nephews.

This layout is based on one of Noreen Smith's 1-2-3 layouts (July 2017). You can still see the video here. I used a pack of CM paper called "Essentials" which had a foiled dot pattern and some bright colors. They don't say Lego on the pack but you can tell that's what they were thinking when they made the papers. I used 2 different shades of cardstock. I liked the blue but since one set of triangles was the exact same shade, I chose to move those to the right side of the layout and use a green cardstock base. Normally you would flip over and use the back side to decrease the "matchy" problem. But the back was large strips of white and yellow and wouldn't mix too well. I think this turned out fine in the end though.

An Inside Glimpse

We got an inside view of two important rail cars. On the left page below is the standard display at Steamtown. It's an original US Mail railway car. You can see the bins and sorting table inside the car as the postal workers would sort as they moved from town to town. Then we got a chance to ride in a caboose. The quarters were VERY tight and Thomas ended up sitting on the floor. Like the Dinkie train, it was a quick ride out and back, but still fun.

This was a quick layout to put together. I didn't follow any particular sketch. The pages are from the CM Trains collection and feature the photos at the top and bottom and the red/white border. I just had to place the photos between the striped borders, journal a bit, and add the decorative sticker to the right page.

It's So Small!

In the museum area, we found a rusted-out version of a small engine called a "Dinkie". This was memorable to me as the intersection just below our house was called the Dinkie when we lived in South Fork, PA. We discovered it was so named because when the area was being mined, the employees boarded a small train there to take them to the mining site. That train was called a Dinkie and the name stuck! In addition to that antique though, was a new and functioning engine and they were giving free rides on it behind the museum. We all piled in for a 5-minute ride out and back.

I based this layout on a sketch I had saved from Even More Scrapping. I always like her sketches because she includes measurements. I chose yellow and red as the main colors based on the photos (especially the old caboose and the Dinkie engineer's bright shirt). For the contrast piece, I used a scrap of the train and tunnel paper (which I think is actually for Disney World's Thunder Mountain ride). I debated the small squares on the layout and then, as I was browsing my punch catalog, realized that the engine and cars from the CM train punch would work perfectly. I had to stack the punched shapes on the left as I didn't think a vertical train would look right, but the overall effect worked for me. I added a couple of other train stickers and die cuts from my stash to finish the layout.