A New Hope

My last park of the day was also a new park for me. Hopewell Culture (not to be confused with Hopewell Furnace) is a site that preserves ancient Native American burial mounds. It's similar to my visit to Effigy Mounds but with fewer trees around, the mounds are much easier to identify. Even if they do still just look like grass-covered mounds. I started at the visitor center to watch the movie (as I had missed this at Effigy Mounds I really wanted to understand the site). Afterward, I had plenty of time to view the mounds. There are 6 local sites. I chose to only do the Mounds Group near the visitor center. If I return I'll have plenty more new mounds to look at.

This is another layout I made on National Scrapbook Day. Scroll to Sketch #1 to see the layout design. I looked through my Spring paper stash and found a pack called "Ladybugs" (a promotional kit from 2023). I liked the brown paper with the swirled design as it reminded me of the interior diagrams of the mounds. The newest packs of CM paper all have coordinating cardstock colors on the front page, but that started AFTER this had been released. As it wasn't a standard pack, there wasn't a "postcard" available (one of the CM Advisors had created a cheat sheet for us for all the paper packs so we could offer cardstock to our customers). However, I found a post about making borders and cards with this pack, giving me references to cardstock that would coordinate. That's how I ended up with Kelly Green for the base! The kit had no embellishments, so I used one scrap of paper to create the border on the left. I used some VERY old CM Shortcuts for the border across the middle. Both had images that reminded me of "mounds". Because I used Kelly Green cardstock, I realized that the Kelly Green tonal pack would also work, so I used some of the stickers that matched the tonal pack and a matching journal box. 

The Fabric of Time

After touring the home, I drove to a local museum that was holding a special exhibit. They had asked quilters to create pieces commemorating the life of Charles Young. The creations were fantastic and covered all periods of his life. I was surprised to see that one quilter even focused on his wife. The medal you see below was also on display. It was presented from the country of Liberia (where he later died) to honor his work on civil rights.

I recently watched one of the Fast and Fun episodes that Noreen Smith hosts for Creative Memories. In it, she showed a technique for creating the edges of this layout and showed how it could be made as a 1-page or 2-page layout. I chose the 2-page layout as the design was perfect for a page about quilts. I continued using the Our Moments paper. Believe it or not, this layout is from just one sheet of double-sided paper!

Home of the Brave

My second park of the day was a new park for me--Charles Young Buffalo Soldier NM. This site specifically commemorates the life of Charles Young. The house is the boyhood home of Charles and his family. By the time it reached the hands of the NPS though, it had been used as a college fraternity house. Though open for several years, the house still has a modern feel to it and they were waiting to get some additional funding to restore the original look of the home. In the meantime, there is a short movie on the life of Colonel Young and lots of posters about his struggle. He was the 3rd African American to enter West Point and one of the panels that stood out to me was the magazine front showing his brutal treatment there. Nonetheless, he graduated and served his country well. By the time of his death, he was the highest-ranking African American in the US military.

I created this sketch for National Scrapbook Day (which is the first Saturday of May each year). Creative Memories held a virtual crop and one of the ways to participate was to create the bonus NSD sketches. I chose to use Our Moments paper and embellishments for this layout instead of the NSD papers. I think both would have worked but I had already chosen the papers before I saw the challenge post. Scroll to sketch #3 to see the sketch I chose.

Exploring the Outdoors

As I mentioned in the last post, I didn't tour the house. I did get a couple of shots of the outside and of course, I had to get a selfie with the sign. That summed up this visit. You'll see why I chose such a short stop. I would visit 3 National Park units in one day. Next stop--Charles Young Buffalo Soldier.

This layout is based on a sketch from the March 24 Virtual Crop. I used papers that I had also used on another layout during the crop I was at when I created this. The base cardstock is Mustard Yellow as it was the closest I could find to the house color. You see that there are red accents on the house, so I chose red from Paper Loft. The torn piece at the bottom is also from Paper Loft. I had torn the top and bottom for the other layout so I had a middle section with 2 tears. It was shorter than called for in the sketch, but I just mounted it a bit further up on the page and allowed the photos to bleed down onto the cardstock. the title stickers and enamel dots came from my stash (CM) but seemed to match well. The journaling is on the left page (last post).

A Pop Of Pink

I finished my conference time in Cincinnati, and since I was in town I decided to refresh my stamps at Taft. I didn't take the tour but I did watch the video in the visitor center. I was early (the visitor center hadn't opened yet) so I wandered the grounds. Luckily the timing was right for me to see a cherry tree with lovely blossoms. I hadn't known that it was his wife who helped bring the cherry trees to the tidal basin in DC. 

I based this layout on a CM Virtual Crop challenge from March 2022. The sketch linked back to a layout that CM had posted and the bonus of that is the original page had measurements. Not that I HAVE to have measurements when I put layouts together, but I don't know that I would have noticed the use of the petals along the bottom where the banners are featured on the sketch. And those petals are things I wanted to use out of my stash (as I really don't do many floral pages). The original page uses yellow from the Botanical Burst collection. I chose the pink for the cherry trees. The papers are not exactly the same designs but I think I chose the ones that worked best for the layout. 

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.