Porch Talks

Today's blog continues our look at the Frederick Douglass National Historic Site. This is our 2nd stop on the NPTC Friday bus tour in 2021. Although we were divided into two groups for two separate ranger talks, in reality, everyone gathered in front of the porch as the rangers tag-teamed one talk for us. Both were excellent speakers. The one in the photo on the right had also been a speaker at our virtual convention in 2020 (and you'll see him again in another blog entry). 

For this layout, I used the Project Recipe for Passport to Adventure, featuring Passport to Adventure papers. (A rarity, I know!) The background cardstock is Canary, and I made my cuts using the green arrow paper (this time because it matches the rangers' outfits) and the street map paper (which looks like a blueprint). Both of those were scraps from other projects, so I used navy cardstock to create the mats. I punched out the circles from a remnant of gold paper and added some circle stickers, as well as another passport stamp design from one of the photo mats.

Looking Down on DC

Welcome back to the 2021 NPTC Convention. The next stop on our bus trip was the Frederic Douglass House. I've been here once before, but it was nice to revisit. On this trip, we did not go through the house, so I'm glad I had that experience previously. Frederick Douglass purposefully built his house up on the hill so that he could literally "look down" on Washington, DC. He was not a fan of politics as he struggled to fight for civil rights for all. The room on the bottom of the right page was his "Growlery," and I imagine he spent a lot of time there grumbling about politicians.

If part of this layout looks familiar, it's because the right page was a bonus post for a Lasting Memories Challenge. The rules of the challenge said that a double-page layout would have to incorporate at least 2 of the exact paper sizes from the challenge. I didn't need to do that, so I omitted the left side from my entry. I like the unigrid from here because of the full-page photo of Douglass. It complements the heritage papers I selected nicely. The strip along the left is a laser-cut border that I back-filled with the gold and red papers you see on the right-hand page.

Feathered Friends

Today's blog will finish up my visit to Kenilworth Aquatic Gardens. But don't worry, there's more to the 2021 NPTC Convention yet to come!

In addition to the lovely flowers in the park, there are opportunities to see wildlife that you wouldn't expect in a city like Washington, D.C. The ducks might not be exotic, but I was surprised to see the great white egrets hunting for fish. We also saw blue herons, but I didn't capture them on film. 

For this layout, I used the Flourish Project Recipe from Creative Memories. I continued using the Sweet Blossoms fast-to-fabulous papers, and this time turned the borders to the bottom. If you look at the original recipe, you will see that I flipped the pages as I wanted the circular photos on the right. I didn't think about it when I created the page, but it's like looking at them through a telescope! Since I had more photos on the other page than the recipe called for, I didn't need to fill the top of the page with more than a small title sticker. But on the right, I wanted a bit more at the top. The Love border is on the back of one of the mat papers, and I trimmed that with the border at the top and bottom for a bit of definition.

Wild Flowers

In today's post, we continue our exploration of Kenilworth Aquatic Gardens at the 2021 NPTC Convention. In addition to the numerous lotus plants, there is a rich assortment of hibiscus and other plants. (And look at the size of that leaf! It's as large as my head!) The brown "thing" is a dried lotus pod, so I suppose that should have been included in the previous layout.

I created this layout based on the CM Project Recipe, 'Bottanical Burst'. I used two sheets of Sweet Blossom paper, which is in the Fast-to-Fabulous style (meaning the borders are pre-printed). I turned the borders to the middle of both pages, so I got a bonus change of color there. I used a piece of white cardstock to create the circle, cut it in half, and layered a tonal paper between the edge of the border and the circle. I punched a leaf border from that same tonal paper and made minor cuts so that it would flow around the circle. It took 3 strips of border to complete the page. The title and sticker flowers were from the same kit, and I finished the page quickly.

Pretty in Pink

Welcome back to Kenilworth Gardens! Our NPTC 2021 Convention Bus trip left us off here for about an hour and a half, and my friend Melania and I did a lot of walking. In this layout, you'll see the lotus blossoms for which the park is best known. There are a series of pools, and each one is bursting with color. I tried to capture a few of the best blooms for posterity.

This layout is another that I created for the Creative Memories Virtual Crop in June 2025. Scroll to Layout #3. The advisor who created this sketch provided an introductory video to talk about how she made her cuts. I followed her advice closely and chose the Jazzberry and Lime Tart papers from the Vivid Melodies collection. (There is a bit of this left if you want to check the store.) Those 2 colors best matched the blooms in my photos. The vertical photo mats were created by punching one of the sheets with an older border punch featuring tulips (as I mentioned in the last blog — tulips somewhat resemble lotus blossoms). Even if they didn't, a floral punch of any shape would work well here. I trimmed the photos to the correct dimensions and layered them according to the sketch. I knew that with a sketch featuring smaller photo sizes, my florals would be perfect. I tend to center them but leave a LOT of landscape, which eventually gets cut away. There are a few additional photos in a sleeve made for the Happy Album. It provides room for 4 horizontal pictures and a bit of journaling in the middle (that's why you don't see journaling on this layout). A few bits of greenery embellishments completed the page.

Lotus Blooming Everywhere

Welcome back to my 2021 NPTC convention tour. This continues the Friday bus trip that we started in the last blog post. Our first stop on the bus trip was Kenilworth Gardens. Visiting Parks in DC is sometimes complicated. Most people think that each place they visit is a "unit". Kenilworth Park and Aquatic Gardens is part of the Anacostia Park section of DC. But even that isn't a unit. They belong to National Capital Parks--East. And no, there is no corresponding north, south, or west designation. That is just the management office. The official unit here is simply "National Capital Parks."

I was happy to visit here as I don't often visit DC in the spring or summer, and this is when the park truly shines. After getting off the bus, we all lined up for stamps (of course). I noticed that there was an abundance of Lotus-themed items everywhere, including the bike stand you see below. Turns out Melania has a lotus tattoo as well! The only thing we missed in this visit was the visitor center, so I'll have to go back at some point and watch the movie there.

This layout was based on one of the Power Hours from Meggan and Tessa (April 2024). The paper is from Old CM — one of the pastel Spring addition packs. They have some pre-printed borders and were the precursor to the Fast to Fabulous pages, I think. I cut up the elements (stripes, blue floral, and green floral) and layered them as per the instructions. There is a lotus blossom laser-cut border in the new Serenity line, and so I moved that over to this layout. It turns out that tulip stickers also somewhat resemble the lotus blossom, and those three stickers were a great way to fill the gap after my journaling.

The People on the Bus

This post takes a look at my next adventure at the 2021 NPTC Convention. On Friday, my friend Melania joined me on one of the buses as we made a LONG tour of several park sites. There were three buses — two regular-sized and one Sprinter-sized. We wisely decided to go in the smaller van, where we had very comfortable seats. Melania had missed our Belmont Paul photo the day before, but she brought her suffragist doll with her on our excursions.

For this page, I used a sketch I had saved from CM's November 2022 Virtual Crop. The yellow vehicles could be buses or just traffic, so I used that as the background (not a CM paper, it's from a tablet in my stash that is all travel-theme papers). As I sorted through my travel stash, I came across some remnants of paper and stickers from the Gallivant collection (circa 2017 CM). The colors matched Melania's shirt, which is a good way to maintain continuity throughout the page. The bottom border is a strip of pink paper from that pack as well. The thin strip of map paper had just enough to be able to see "Washington," so I wanted that included (though I'm not entirely sure it's supposed to be Washington, DC on the map). The sticker borders around the map paper are from the Staycation pack. It looks like an unfolded paper map to me, and all the colors blend nicely.