Fossilized Trees

In the summer of 2010 I traveled to Denver for a conference and as my aunt and uncle live just south of the city I made plans to visit them. While I was with them we visited a National Park very close to their house called Florissant Fossil Beds.

This is one of my favorite layouts. The paper and embellishments come from Club Scrap (You can check them out here). While you could sign up for monthly shipments, they also allow people to buy "a la carte" and I've purchased from them several times. I think their National Park themed papers are now sold out, but it's worth checking out their site periodically to see if they do a re-issue or a new similar theme.

This is the layout as shown on the Club Scrap website (click here). You can see that I modified the layout slightly. The backgrounds are the same and I used red card stock to mat the photos but they are laid out slightly differently. Because the backgrounds are busy the mats help make the photos stand out. I made a couple of cutting errors. First, I cut the photos too soon so I had to be creative in arranging them on the page. Next, I cut the mats wrong and the upper right is actually 2 pieces edged together. Still, you have to look closely and there is just a slight difference in matting around the photos.

I have taken a house in Germantown...

And a return to Philadelphia! I hope you aren't tired of these visits as we have a lot more! This is again after my annual student trip to the Mutter museum. This time I made the LONG journey by bus out to the Germantown White House or Deshler Morris House. This is where George Washington stayed as president while trying to escape the rampant disease in the downtown Philly area.




























I surprised myself by not having any photos of the interior of the house. I'm sure I was allowed to take them but perhaps they didn't turn out well. So, I did get a shot of the front of the house and the garden in the back. The page was simply made. The confetti look is achieved through an 8 1/2 x 11 piece of vellum with the confetti printed on it. I added a scrap of blue to the right side to close the gap. This also allowed me a place to journal. The stickers are from the same sheet used in the previous Independence Hall page. Looks a little like Martha?

Oh the things I will do for a stamp.....

The next set of layouts is from a day spent in Greeley, CO. It was March and I was in Denver for the AORN national convention. I arrived a day early to do some stamp gathering and decided to take a Greyhound bus to Greeley to pick up a Cache la Poudre River National Heritage Area Stamp. Again an affiliated site, but I had few options without a car. My first stop in town was at the museum where the stamp is kept and I walked through all the exhibits.

The opening layout focuses on one of the museum exhibits--a dress made from snake skins. I looked high and low to find a piece of paper that would look something like snake and that became the background. I also had to hunt for snake stickers which surprised me, but I was ultimately successful again. I built the title bar from a piece of contrasting paper so the green snake would not get lost in the details. The right page is more about the city, and I tore a piece of green paper to simulate a grassy slope then accented the upper photos with green mats.

I ended up spending all day in Greeley and walked literally across town. If you look at a Google Map, look for the mall and Meeker House. I walked at least 3 miles. I wish I had been wearing a pedometer. Luckily I could get a bus from the mall back to town.

My second stop of the day is the Meeker house below which is the home of the city's founder. I could not go in but did walk along the grounds. My day lasted a little extra long as the bus to return me to Denver at the end of the day was running late and I spent a few chilly hours waiting outside as there is no proper bus station in town. But, I did end up back in Denver that evening and made it to the conference the next day.

This layout is also wallpaper, and like the snakeskin paper--purposeful. I found the paper in a scrapbook store north of Pittsburgh and knew immediately it would tell the story of walking through town and seeing this historic home. I had to do a little photo adjusting to use only vertical photos but it seemed like my photos knew this ahead of time. I'm quite pleased with how these pages turned out.

Guess who's in Philly again?

If you guessed me, you're right! For my niece's birthday I gave her a certificate for a trip to any National Park with me. She could bring a friend and she also got a souvenir. Sierra chose to go to Independence National Historical Park for New Year's Eve and took her mom. The weather was a bit snowy but we made the trek down successfully. As it is a low visitation time of year you can simply pick up tickets at the visitor center and we essentially walked right onto the next tour. We had time afterward to see the Liberty Bell.

I had bought a piece of 12x12 paper with an image of the Declaration of Independence on it so I thought it the perfect wallpaper for the left side of this layout. On the right I added some decorative stickers but mostly just mounted and framed the photos and memorabilia. I love the patriotic/colonial stickers I found but cannot remember where I got them. That's too bad because I really would like another sheet.

More Than Just a Fort

For my 40th birthday, my parents and Jim and I went to Pittsburgh for a Pirate's game. On Sunday as we left the city, my birthday wish was to visit Fort Necessity. My parents think they either took me there as a child or I went as part of a school trip but I don't really remember going. So, we made a stop! We were in time to see a living history presentation on the life of a soldier at the fort with musket firing demonstration.

For this layout I tried a little creativity and I think I mostly pulled it off. On the left page I used a plain brown border strip and crossed it with the theme paper from the Eastern National pack. Since that paper is 8 1/2 x 11, I must have layered 2 segments but with plain tan blocks holding stickers, it isn't noticeable. This may be a Fast Formula from Creative Memories as the design is very similar to the one I used on the Virgin Island pages.

On the right page the brown border strip is decorated with NPS logos punched from another sheet from the EN pack. I used the Creative Memories Place and Punch with a postage stamp edge so that I could get quite a few blocks to fill the border. A smaller punch was used on the pine cones which is from the same paper. I added a small filler box with some leftover stickers. Brown mats complete the page nicely.

What I didn't know before my visit was that along with the historic aspect of the Fort, the site also commemorates the original highway called the National Road. Stage coaches would regularly stop at a tavern nearby and it has been restored to its original looks.

This layout was a little tricky because there were 2 information sheets I wanted to incorporate and they took up quite a bit of room. I used some of the 8 1/2 x 11 card stock from the EN kit and mounted them sideways. The 1" gap left and right is filled with another set of borders I made with the Creative Memories travel paper and stickers. That left a small gap for journaling next to photos of the building and wagon.

Inside the tavern we listened to a Ranger explain the journey and the purpose of the rooms.

For this layout I again wanted a heritage feel to the pages. I had a sheet of decorative card stock (trimmed as a frame) and cut that in half. I also cut a sheet of floral paper that reminded me of old wall paper in half and sandwiched it on the middle of the pages. A few of my stickers with an "old travel theme" gave a little authenticity to the layout.

Rocky Mountain High

In August 2009, I had to travel to Denver to attend a training session. Jim came along and we spent some extra time seeing the area. Our national park visit was to Rocky Mountain National Park. We started in Estes and drove all the way to the other end of the park, then returned to Denver that night.

The trip generated quite a few pages that are not NPS related, which puts my kick-off page for the park on a right-side page. If you noticed the 6" square technique, congratulations! In fact, this is the same pack I used on the Eisenhower layout. The photo of me at the entrance sign is framed in one of the photo mats from the Eastern National scrapbook kit. The similarities to the photo are striking!

As we drove through the park we decided to try a short hike on the "Tundra Trail". It's in the higher elevation so we needed our coats even though it was a hot August day.

The borders and title block were part of a series I made with the map paper and travel stickers from Creative Memories. I used the green card stock from the border to mat photos and the journal box. The journal box is made from the same Done With One travel page that I used on the Virgin Island pages. I had actually made this several years previously and was waiting to put it on the layout. It actually drove the rest of the page!

In addition to the Mushroom Rocks in the layout above, we saw a yellow bellied marmot and some great flowers. While both of the pages here are wallpaper technique, the results are slightly different. On the left I chose a map/forest theme page which matched the photos well. The National Park sign on the upper right is cut from a page from the Eastern National kit. The camera and film stickers are Creative Memories.

The right page is NOT my photo. It's a 12x12 page paper of a rather twisty mountain road. It was the PERFECT page to tell the story of getting from Rocky Mountain National Park back to Denver. (Because of all the switchbacks, if you looked at the map tracing our car took, it would look like a really bad EKG!) So the only thing I added to the page other than the journal box is a die cut car to enhance the story. I probably should have moved it a little higher on the road so the ratio of car to macadam is appropriate, but it's always one of my favorite layouts.

Once again to Philadelphia

We've arrived at my pages for spring 2009 and even though I feel like I just posted about Philadelphia, it's time for the trip to the city with my students again. This time after we finished the museum and I ate lunch at City Tavern, I walked further south to Gloria Dei Church, also called Old Swede's church. Like the Franklin Memorial, this isn't one of the NPS units--it's an affiliated unit and run in conjunction with Independence National Historical Park. However, since it's the only pictures I took of this visit, I include it here.

This structure is one of the earliest churches built in America and it is still in use. I did take the photos on the outside of the structure and the one of the organ. The view of the main seating area is actually a card I bought while on site.  It's a self-guided tour and I recommend looking through the old graveyard next to the church.

I love the colors I chose on this layout. I don't know that I really matched them to anything in the photos but it just flows. I used 2 sheets of paper and tore them with a wavy tearing tool at about 6 inches. Then I reversed one set of pages and made the 2 complimentary backgrounds. Just enough room for journaling and I didn't really need any more embellishments.