Centennial Part 14--Hot as an oven

Tuesday morning the club met a little west of Philadelphia at Hopewell Furnace. This park commemorates the era of plantation houses and iron manufacturing prevalent in the area. The park staff are very nice and help our club quite a bit. They even had some special stampers out for us! We watched the movie as a group and then took a ranger walk through the park.

This is a single page following the end of the Maurice River cruise. It turned into a mini kick-off page for this part of the trip and I decided to do an introduction with a "then and now" theme. The top photo is a postcard of the original site from the early days (late 19th century) and the bottom photo is present day. That left little room for the unigrid, so I decided to go ahead and mount it sideways. I've done that before when the image is viewed better in that direction, but this time it was a matter of convenience. Still, its purpose is mostly to be able to take it out and review the maps and information at a later date, and it certainly will serve that purpose.

We started out with quite a few people on the tour, but many drifted away as the ranger moved us from building to building. By the time we reached the foundry, there were just a handful left.

This paper reverts to wallpaper technique. I used a plaid pattern as I was trying to evoke a "homestead" sort of feel. Impressively the title "Ranger Walk" made of letter stickers did not require modification of the letters! The corner designs were something new I was trying with a Cricut machine. I had not gotten the hang of sizing them appropriately for the page so they are a little small, but nice page fillers. I'm most proud of my journal box that incorporates a cast iron stove along the edge of the sticker. Hopewell Furnace is famous for producing early stoves in that design.

I wanted to finish the entry with some photos of the buildings. My favorite is the water wheel that drives the bellows.

This layout is scraplifted from Club Scrap's Homestead collection (see layouts 1 and 2). Now I don't own ALL of the parts of this collection, but I could use the background pages and the orange stripes. The most important part for me was the wheel image on the paper and the "then and now" theme from the left orange bar "Yesterday Today Tomorrow". I had a different journal box that matched the style of the kit and also found the banner segment on the right hand page from a different collection, but I think the colors matched up fine.

I also had photos of club members throughout the site and I chose to highlight them on the last layout pages. After touring we all went to lunch at a restaurant near Valley Forge (which is not far away) and the right page features that. It's a preview to next week's pages!

This is a true SCRAP page. The light brown NPS logo paper was originally 8 1/2 x 11, and I had used it on another layout. I cut the remainder into 2 blocks and used them to back some photos and bring the 2 pages together. I took another 8 1/2 x 11 page that featured the stamps and passport and cut the page to make a right sided border. The part I cut out (the passport book) decorates the left page nicely. A couple of stickers and a camera journal box pulled the page together. As eclectic as the components are, it really works as a layout for me.

Centennial part 13--Rolling Down the River

After the debacle of Great Egg Harbor, I showered and in a much better frame of mind, headed over to our evening cruise of the Maurice (pronounced "Morris") river. Our cruise covered a good portion of the river while our captain narrated. They also provide a "spotter" to see all the eagles and osprey along the route.

This layout is scraplifted from a Close to My Heart layout that I found. Though I didn't have the paper from the CTMH kit, I pulled some matching tones together and I think it fit the layout perfectly! I really had to look around for eagle stickers and even ended up buying a cricut image collection to get the eagle on the left of the second page.

We gathered once again for a group photo as we returned to the dock.

Hopefully you can see the pattern on this paper. It is an ombre effect of green/blue swells across the page. This fit my title perfectly so all I had to do was trim the 8x10 photo to fit the page. I'm liking that I can add large photos of groups so you can see the individuals better. Keep an eye on Shutterfly as they often provide 2 free as an option.

Centennial Part 12--Egg-cellent Adventure?

Oh my. This is one of those experiences where the scrapbook just doesn't do it justice. If you can read the rather lengthy journal box on the page you'll see that this was my LEAST favorite park and activity of the entire convention. I'm sure I'll look back and laugh someday. Still not there yet....

This layout is scraplifted from a Club Scrap layout (see layouts 5&6). I had purchased some of the paper on clearance and was able to modify the layout based on what I had on hand. The dark green is actually vellum torn with my CM tearing tool. I think it could easily be mountains or rivers so it works well here. The upper right corner features some old stickers in my stash that had a lake/river theme. I matted them on the dark blue that I used on the horizontal borders for a little more pop.

Centennial Part 11--Franklin Museum

Monday morning I headed to the city again. I was to pick up a passenger to ride with me to several events and her hotel was close to the visitor center. I arrived early and toured the Franklin Museum and associated sites. The updated area is very interactive and I had fun being a kid for a while.

Although this is a wallpaper technique, there is a bit of a twist. Using the Creative Memories Border Maker System, I punched the middles of each side of a piece of paper. This leaves a large box in each corner which I then filled with appropriate stickers and other embellishments. Yes, the same sticker was used in 3 of the 8 corners, but it's so minor I bet you didn't notice it until I pointed it out. There are many different cartridges available for this system, so you can use the technique for a variety of events. The stars here are great for patriotic and military themes, but you could also use it for an evening of camping. It works best if the paper is left solid. Using the jumbo jet cartridge, for example, would be a little trickier as the planes are meant to be detached from the page.

Centennial Part 10--A rainy walk

After the stop at Declaration house and a stop  for a drink at Dunkin Donuts across the street (probably how Jefferson could stay up late writing), I headed to the Independence Visitor Center. One of the scheduled ranger walks was to give an overview of some lesser known buildings and I thought it would be a good way to cap off the evening......On the left you'll see that I stopped outside the visitor center for a shot of our new plaque. The club raised funds to create and mount this plaque to the first NPS Superintendent. At one time all the parks had them but many are lost and some of the newer parks never received a plaque.

On the right is our walk that started out fine but within a block was stopped by a horrendous thunderstorm! Our intrepid guide was protected with a raincoat but the rest of us were not so lucky. We hunkered under the front of the Liberty Bell building and our guide finished her descriptions without the walk. It was rather enjoyable after all! We had someone take a group photo of us as "drowned rats" and I saw a rainbow on the drive back to the hotel so that created the essence of the page.

The layout on the left is a Fast to Fabulous page. The photos were in the "wrong" direction, but to me that just creates space for journaling!

The right side layout isn't fancy, but I wanted a large journaling box to tell the story. I kept the page colors from the left to create harmony--purple matting for the photos, a purple border at the top, and a purple journal box. I added some VERY old silver cloud stickers that with a few raindrops look like thunderclouds. I can't decide which way is "up" on the clouds. Should the darker stripe be on the top or bottom for thunderclouds? Comment below with your thoughts!

Centennial part 9--I Declare!

At the end of the trolley tour it was noted that Declaration House was still open and several of us journeyed down the street to take a tour. This is the home where Jefferson wrote the document and has a few rooms dedicated to how it looked when he lived here.

I don't often do wallpaper with 8 1/2 x 11 paper (in fact I think I've only done it once before during the DC convention), but I thought it would work here. This cardstock is a copy of the Declaration of Independence so I thought it was a great time to use it since I had only a couple of small photos of the house and plaques. This had to be a 1-page layout because the end trolley photo is on the left side. The title at the top is from some letter stickers found in a travel kit. Can you tell I created the second "A" in Declaration from an upside down "u"? I think it works. I really wish I was better at placing square letter stickers in a straight line. I just move too fast sometimes.

Inside we climbed the staircase to view his rooms. The mural on the left below is actually 2 stories tall!  The right photo is an enlargement of his draft with edits all over the place. This is also about 2 stories tall.

I based the left page on this Pinned Image. I then used a F2F page for the right but added some details to make them similar enough for a match. On the left it's an orange base, then 2 slightly smaller squares of coordinating paper. You can see the 3rd square matches the pattern on the right page perfectly. I love the journaling across strips of cardstock. On the right since the paper already matched I just wanted to add a border that mirrored the left page. The blue plaid is from the strip I cut to make the mat on the left. Instead of buttons I chose a plain tab. This would have been a good place for a small title if I needed one but I thought it fine to leave it plain.

Centennial Part 8--End of the line

After lunch we headed to the last 2 stops. First is a small, very old church called Gloria Dei. It is one of the oldest active churches in the US! We didn't get a stamp here, though sometimes it is possible. Instead we obtained the stamp later at the Independence Visitor Center.

I'm not sure why, but I seem to favor yellow pages when I scrapbook about churches. When creating this layout I knew that I wanted to separate the dog reference from the church as it's sort of an add-on humorous bit. I chose a 1/2 page cardstock with a decorative border and then used a full page of the same color on the left page. That became a great background for the photos. I just accented with a few candle stickers. It leaves the informational markers and the dog sign as clear "extras". I thought the dog sticker with paw prints a nice touch!

Our final stop is the smallest unit of the National Park Service. Thaddeus Kosciuszko was a Polish immigrant who fought in the Revolutionary War as one of the Engineers. He is a hero in his own country as well and their descendents are responsible for ensuring his home is maintained in tribute.

This is a very simple layout. I based my color choice on the last sticker on a page of Revolutionary War embellishments. By focusing on the yellowish coat, I chose paper and used a new border maker to create decorative edges. I matted one photo to bring the page together though I probably should have added more mustard yellow touches. The yellowish journal box on the right helps a bit. I only had 3 stars left for the left border. Adding them to the right would have looked a little more symmetrical.

The last thing we did before the trip was over was to get a group photo. Or as many as were still around. A few people had already wandered away before we could get the photo taken.

This paper serves as a great base for the larger group photo. I did trim the 8x10 down to 5x10 by cutting away the excess road and sky (as I mentioned when putting multiple photos on the convention page). The remainder fit perfectly between the pre-decorated page elements, and I think was a good end to the trip.