A Different Look at History

In March 2019, Jim and I headed to Florida to take in some spring training baseball games. Since we were going to be in the area, I added a stop at De Soto National Memorial (very close to the Pirates home field in Bradenton). I didn't know what to expect--De Soto was not prominently featured in my elementary school days, so we took time to explore. It really is a sad story. Though he is credited with a great deal of exploration and discovery, he is among many Spanish "conquerors" who tried to eliminate the native cultures of the area. The park is fairly small. It is the trailhead of the De Soto Trail which covers the first year of his travels and ranges along the western coast of Florida. There is a place for living history events but we were a little early in the season to view those. In their place, they have life-sized poster cutouts of the inhabitants. You'll see more of that next week.

I based this layout on a sketch from Even More Scrapping. CM has a collection called Tropic Time that was a perfect match for this area. One of the coordinating colors is dark green, so I chose the background cardstock in that shade and then layered a touch of gold along the edges. The leaves are all die cuts in the collection. You can see that I split one of the sticker borders (sort of sunshine) to add a little more interest to the top. 

It's Element-ary

 One of our last stops in the park was this chemistry lab. Again, I never really considered that this would be needed but it was one of the largest, and for its time, state-of-the-art labs in the country. Everything has been left in its original state as it was when the system closed down and was handed over to the government. To me, that seems a bit short-sighted as not all of those chemicals will sit in jars peacefully. I really enjoyed looking around this space. Even the color coding of the pipes was interesting to me. I'm a nerd. 👩

I am trying to use the stash in my room (my New Year's Resolution is to buy FEWER scrapbook materials than last year--that's not an easy goal!) As I was going through some pre-made pages I came across these pages that I made at a Paper Loft class in Lancaster. The background is as simple as can be. There are 4x6 mats all the way across the middle (in 2 rows). If I didn't like the saying on the mat, I covered it with a photo. The "Beauty is in the eye" quote made me smile as chemistry can be beautiful to a nerd, so I added my photos. The journal box could be removed (it's in a pocket) but I didn't need very much room to write as this was the end of the trip. 

Office Envy

There are a LOT of areas in the lab complex to see. I have more photos but I culled these from his "office". I wish I had an office the size of a library! He had every resource you could imagine here. The displays contain quite a few examples of his work as well.

This is another layout from Club Scrap's Industrial Evolution kit (Layouts 1 and 2). I did have a few photos that fit on the pre-designed pages. I used a postcard in the upper right and I was reluctant to trim it to the size of the mat so I just offset it. I think it still works. On the bottom of the right page, I had trimmed a photo of his chair. By cutting it in half it looks like 2 photos but is really one shot. I like how that breaks up the highlights though. You really see both items that I was focusing on.

Wax in Your Ears

The reason I wanted to go to Edison that day was for the special event they announced. They recreated the recording and subsequent playing of live music just as Thomas Edison would have done. The ranger in the photos showed us how the recording side worked first, and yes, it was recorded on a wax cylinder! The banjo player played into the horn on the recording device. Once done, the ranger took the wax cylinder off, transferred it to the gramophone, and played it back. The quality was amazing! It didn't have static as you would expect!

This layout is based on a CM Virtual Crop sketch (scroll to sketch #4). Because the topic was music I chose the Showtime papers and embellishments. I've used this a bit so I'm running out of paper. I chose to use black cardstock as the background. Since the concept was historical it felt right to go back to the old-time look of black papers. It also makes the colors of the paper to shine and pop! 

Who Left the Light On?

My next trip was not until March 2019. Jim and I headed to Thomas Edison in New Jersey for a special event (you'll see that next week). We purchased our first NPS Parks Pass as we knew we would need it this summer for our convention trip, and there is a fee to enter Edison. While waiting for the event to begin we took a moment to go outside. I had not realized that Edison also started the motion picture industry. The large black building you see there is the Black Mariah film studio. Built on a track, it can rotate 360 degrees to capture the sun for natural lighting. He filmed acrobats, sneezes, and other day-to-day activities, but not much in the theatrical realm. I got my photo taken with the great man--or at least his statue.

This layout is part of a kit I got from Club Scrap. It's called Industrial Evolution (scroll to layout 3-4) and as soon as they released it I knew it would be perfect for many of my NPS trips. It has not only a historical feel but a touch of gears and industry. The left page was able to hold the brochure and a large postcard I bought which shows the many areas inside, as well as a pantograph of the exterior buildings. I then chose my outside photos and since there was a note about "turning on the light" I added the photo I took of an original Edison bulb--yes still burning all these years later. I normally would have waited and put that in the "room" where the photo was taken but I think it works even better here as an introduction to the space. The original journal box is under the postcard, but I was able to use the 2 small squares on the right for my journaling. You have to love how fast these pages come together!

The Not-So-Glamorous Life

To end my visit I took a walk down the path to the farm section of the plantation. Here the story is wildly different than the mansion. The larger dwelling below is the overseer's house (though it was the original family residence as they built the mansion). The "lower house" includes displays of how the farm was run and focuses on the lives of the enslaved people who worked there. Though they were enslaved at the mansion as well, the narrative is discussed in more detail through the dwellings and workspaces that remain. And many buildings remain even hundreds of years after they were built.

This page is a wallpaper page. I decided to pull my "Farm" materials to work on this part of the story and this is a page I picked up from a scrapbook yardsale. The picket fence at the bottom of the page reminded me so much of the fence around the overseer's house that it seemed the perfect fit. I matted the photos as the blue sky was blending into the background a little more than I wanted. The paper was so decorative that I didn't need to add embellishments. And I had enough negative space left to journal directly on the page.

The farmhouse kitchen had great displays of manikins wearing the outfits enslaved people would have worn. There were also some cut-outs spread around the areas to help visualize the use of spaces. The log huts were the enslaved people's quarters and predictably, had little to no furniture. The contrast of the 2 lifestyles is striking but few people take the time to see the lower farm on their visit.

This layout is based on one of the 101 Sketches (page 102). The background papers are still from the Winter Woods collection. They had a distressed look to them that matched the severe life of the enslaved people. The corners are from a mat that I had from a different collection. The stripes reminded me of the logs in the cabin. Unfortunately, I only had one mat so I had to alternate how the stripes ran in the corners. The journal box is from a very OLD CM collection and is supposed to be a Thanksgiving or Fall accent. But I think it works with the kitchen and hearth here. Across the middle of the page are 2 laser-cut borders. By cutting each in half and stretching them across the pages, I didn't have to worry about having 2 sets (which I don't). I sometimes buy 2 sets of laser-cut borders for matching pages. But if you didn't, here is a trick to stretch your stash!

Ice Ice Baby

Another interesting feature on the grounds is the ice house. This underground chamber was filled with blocks of ice in the winter and the structure held the coolness through much of the summer. I was able to walk to the bottom entrance and jump the puddle on the path to get my photos of the inside.

I based this layout on Sketch #9 from the CM Worldwide Virtual Crop in September 2023. Although the sketch called for a 4x4 photo in the upper left corner, I used a 4x6 but then layered the 4x4 on top using a peekaboo pocket. You can see the pocket flipped open below. I continued using the Winter Woods paper and stickers since the theme was "icy". I thought the title embellishment was perfect for the structure.

Using a peekaboo pocket kept this from being a 2-page spread.