Wheeling along

In April 2019 I headed to Cincinnati for a Health Professions Network conference. I left work in the evening so got as far as Pittsburgh before stopping for the night. The next morning I made a quick stop in Wheeling for some park stamps in the Wheeling National Heritage Area. The visitor center has some stamps and the artisan center across the street has more. I couldn't stay long enough to see the Artisan Center but to make this more than a "stamp and run" I walked down to the river to see this historic bridge. It was the first bridge to cross the Ohio River and at one point the largest suspension bridge in the world. When the pioneers arrived at this point they had to ferry or wade across. A bridge allowed for faster and easier travel. I enjoyed walking down, standing under the bridge, and looking up through the mesh grates.

I based this layout on one of Meggan and Tessa's Power Hours (December 2021). I chose to use just the right side of the layout as I had created an itinerary of the trip on the left. I used papers from the Wanderlust collection. 

One Fine Day

 As you walk the De Soto trail, you come to an area with several religious monuments. There is one that has an obelisk and then a large cross. Both were placed by local parishes as memorials to the DeSoto expedition. Not to DeSoto himself though--to the memory of the 12 priests that were part of his excursion! There was a statue of DeSoto in the same area but that suffered from vandalism and so has been removed. It's a shame that people feel the need to desecrate memorials.

You may remember that I posted this layout previously when I worked on the Lasting Moments Challenge. Review this blog post and you can find details about the choice of colors and the sketch I used.

If Monty Python Came to Florida

From the visitor center, you follow a path around the park ending in the visitor center parking lot. I loved the cut-outs along the way but could not keep from imagining John Cleese's voice of "Stupid English K-nig-its" when I saw the soldiers in period outfits. The view from the point is quite lovely though and there is a small beach.

I went back to the 101 Sketches book for this layout (page 73). I continued using the Tropic Time kit. The hint of flowers and leaves framed these photos perfectly. I cut down a mat to get the title and then added a die-cut. I love that it is already decorated with many layers of leaves, flowers, and birds. The top right square is from a complimentary pack called Pineapples and Palms. It was a gift from me to my customers if they spent $250 that quarter. The Monstera leaf is prominent in the patterned paper, the small square on the right, and in the cluster by the title so I chose one with lines to be the journal box as well. It was the final touch to the page.

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!