Homeward Bound

I'm sure you all had similar feelings during Covid. Since we were homebound during the first few months, we would do ANYTHING to relieve our cabin fever and feelings of monotony. So in April 2020, on National Junior Ranger Day, some friends and I vowed to complete a Junior Ranger booklet for one of the National Parks but to do it from home. I had the Junior Ranger book from last summer's trip to the Grand Canyon, so I pulled it out and completed it. I emailed the rangers and told them I would send it in for verification, but they didn't need me to do that. I was pleasantly surprised in June when I received an envelope with my badge and a lovely postcard from the ranger!

I debated the background for this page. I had been making a lot of Covid-themed pages, and that was what I had looked at first. However, since this is more about the Grand Canyon, I decided to pull this sheet of texture paper from the Creative Memories Leave Nothing Behind collection. The postcard took up a lot of room, so I wanted to keep the photos smaller. They did need to be matted, though, because the background paper was a bit "noisy." I chose blue to match the sky portion of the paper and the journal box. The stickers on the journal box are from the CM Covid paper pack (Love Each Other 2). Because the paper was so busy, I didn't need more embellishments besides my "time travel" arrow.

Visiting for Spite?

I was pretty upset by the treatment at the Christmas party at Gateway NRA. So, I decided to go to a different park to make myself feel better. Paterson Great Falls was about an hour away--not terribly close, but since I had quite a bit of daylight left, I made the trip. I started at the visitor center to get an overview. The town's claim to fame is that it was the first PLANNED industrial city. Who planned it? His name is Alexander Hamilton! The falls and the Passaic River provided great power to turn wheels, creating everything from cloth to locomotives. You can still walk across the falls, as seen in my photos below. It was freezing, and the spray coming from the water chilled me to the bone. I returned to the visitor center to warm up before exploring the rest of the city.

This layout is based on this pin (and doubled). I found a sheet of brick paper, which I split to cover the bottom of the pages, and decided on the blue stripe for the vertical elements. I decided to include several photos of the falls--peekaboo pockets to the rescue! I have 2 of them layered and chose to use a waterfall technique in honor of the falls. That means that each photo is layered a bit ABOVE the underlying image. The last embellishment set was made of stickers from the musical Hamilton. Someone at work sent them to me anonymously, and it became the perfect fit for this page.

Christmas Nostalgia

Every year in December, I strive to visit a National Park Site decorated for Christmas. For 2019, I planned a visit to the Sandy Hook portion of Gateway National Recreation Area (at the top of New Jersey). My previous visit focused on the lighthouse, but this time, I headed over to the old army post. Many buildings still stand from when this was an active base during WWII. One of the houses was set for a 1940s Christmas party. I was early, so I wandered the area, looking at the other houses and structures like the cannon.

If this layout looks familiar, you may remember the post from July when it was created. You can revisit the blog entry to learn how I made it.

When the official start time for the public open house came, I returned to the house. There had been a special Christmas party for the volunteers who man the base and the NRA. Many of them dressed in period attire. They reluctantly let me in (I had to show them that the public time had started). Their Christmas party was still in full swing, and I felt a bit awkward "crashing" their party. Nonetheless, they set the times, so I wandered through the house looking at the vintage holiday displays.

This layout is based on a sketch, but I cannot find the inspiration (sorry). I used paper from Creative Memories, one of the last sheets in the CM Joy kit. The embellishments are from Graphic 45, except for the car. I had saved that car sticker from the CM Decades sticker pack for the 1940s (and isn't it amazing how it matched the car in real life almost exactly?!?). 

I especially enjoyed seeing the display in the kitchen. The old tins and bottles with original labels were quite interesting. Upstairs, the rooms were set up for the commander and his family, so you see not only the uniform but also what the wife and children would wear and some of their possessions.

The left side of this layout is based on the 101 Sketches book (page 85). I'll admit it's a very loose interpretation. I turned the photos on their sides, and there were fewer pieces of paper between the photo elements.

The right side is based on a pin I've saved for a LONG time! Before the original Creative Memories went out of business, I spent time "pinning" all of the ideas from their blog, including sketches. Those sketches used a lot of smaller photos, and my technique at the time didn't match those (nor was I "reading" the sketches and interpreting them in my own style). I dug into my stash of Graphic 45 papers for this layout (both sides). I've always liked how their papers coordinate with historic home tours. I used a LOT of scraps to put these together, plus some random old stickers from my stash.

Give us Liberty!

The last stop of the day was at Liberty Hall. I had arranged an NPTC Meetup. While we didn't run into each other much during the day, we gathered here for the day's final tour. I set up my stamper near the official stampers and tried to pull everyone together. However, I missed the last tour as club members kept arriving and wanted to stamp! Well, there will be another one next time, I'm sure! Several of us headed to dinner after this to chat more, and then it was time to return to the current year.

This layout is based on one of the CM sketches in the 101 sketchbook (page 60). I am using a collection called Gem Tone, a secret box from a few years ago. I love it for pages with historic homes. It just seems to "fit". The bottom is 1 1/2" strips (again, a great way to use up scraps!) The border sticker across the top covers any slight imperfections in the length. The kit came with a set of laser-cut frames. The one you see above is 1/2 of the frame in the kit. I only needed to highlight one photo, and I could keep the other half for a different page. I tucked the cut edge under the brochure so you cannot see any imperfect edges.

Post #500! Stop Inn

Wow, this blog is on post #500! Thanks to everyone who has stuck with me over the years. I hope you've enjoyed the tales as much as I enjoyed making and sharing the pages with you.

My next stop was this historic tavern. The location was active a bit AFTER the Revolutionary War. It was part of a stagecoach route connecting Boston, New York, and Philadelphia. They recreated the tavern and kitchen from the early 1800s. Another building on site is related to the Colonial era, but while it is preserved, it serves as their gift shop.

This layout is based on Cheryl Even's Sketch #76. I used an ivory piece of cardstock and a long strip of Old CM paper (I'm not sure what pack that came from, but it's probably 2009 or so). I cut another piece of cardstock with one of CM's large custom-cutting system shapes. It's no longer for sale on their site, but keep an eye out, as sometimes they do "retro" sales and bring back classic pieces for brief periods. Replacing one of the photos with a journal box allowed me to add the brochure for the site to the decorative element in green. I then added a 12" border sticker (cut in half so I could use it top and bottom) and a couple of old candlestick stickers, which I think are actually from a formal dining kit 😊. Given it's a tavern, I thought the "Cheers" title fit pretty well. 

No Bread For You!

My next stop was to the Frazee House. This house is undergoing extensive renovations, so there are only photos of the exterior. I did enjoy the story, though I wonder how true it is. Supposedly Betty Frazee was an excellent baker and the British Army, and supposedly Cornwallis himself, came through and wanted to buy the bread from her to feed the troops. As someone inclined to follow the American Rebels, she declined. Whereby the British ransacked her farm and took the bread anyway. True or not, it is that type of story that helped stir up sentiment to follow the Colonials. And of course, history is written by the victors...

If you've noticed, the past few layouts (including this one) include some little trading cards. They were available at the sites and with a shortage of photos, they really helped tell the story! They are all mounted with photo corners so that they can be removed and you can still read the story on the back. 

This layout is based on a sketch from the CM December 2023 Virtual Crop. Scroll to Sketch #1. I had pulled my patriotic materials to work on these pages and this paper was from a secret box. The paper is called "Starlight" and due to the stars, it ended up in the Patriotic box. It was the perfect background for this layout as I wanted something patriotic but also "homey". The quilted background paper fits both categories. I used some of the larger star embellishments as my journal boxes. If you look closely at the gold strips you might be able to see that they are cut with the new Colonial blade for our 12" trimmer. It's a small detail, but it does work!

Outstanding in His Field

I did not know about the next stop--Ashbrook Reservation. It's a local park and the site of a Revolutionary War Battle called the Battle of the Short Hills (definitely missing from my high school history book). If you want to read a bit about the battle, try this website. The stamp and information booth was in front of a local vocational-technical high school. It was quite odd to see tents and colonial-era people milling about there. I had a great talk with the gentleman on duty about people in the area and names from the era with which I was familiar. In his discussion about the battle, we looked over his cannon. And then he picked it up to show me that it was not only not "period" but was painted styrofoam! His associate had been taking photos with my camera and captured the moment that I realized the folly, and THAT was what I wanted to capture on the layout.

This layout is loosely based on this pin from CM's December 2022 Virtual Crop (also on page 58 of the 101 Sketches book). the background paper is one of the patriotic packs from my stash. Since that was in blue and white, it made sense that my mats were red. I chose 2 punches to add decorations--the CM star punch which makes a frame star and gives you the inner cut star, and the rocket punch. Clustering those in opposite corners gives you the flow across the page. The flag embellishment is from a pack I picked up from Paper Wizard. I bought that pack of minis for my Boston photos. I guess I'll have to pick up another pack!