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!

How could you not like the Drake?

My next adventure was in October 2019 for the Union County Four Centuries in a Weekend Event. Union County, NJ is the home of many historic sites with connections to Washington and the Revolutionary War, the Industrial Revolution, and World War 2. Some sites are connected to the Crossroads of the American Revolution historic trail and have National Park stamps. The event organizers also created Union County stamps so we can generally get 2 at each location. Though it is a 2-day event, I had to work on Saturday so I visited just on Sunday and got to only a few locations. The event is held yearly, so I can return for more visits.

My first stop is a home called the Drake House Museum. This house's claim to fame is that during the Battle of Short Hills, George Washington used the front parlor as his headquarters. The photos on this layout reflect the heritage and rooms that are decorated in the colonial style (including a kitchen and medicine cupboard). I also got to pose as Alexander Hamilton's long-lost cousin. See a resemblance? 😁

This layout is based on Noreen Smith's January 2019 1-2-3 layout. I reversed the layout (imagine it flipped horizontally) so that the tall column of photos is on the right side of the layout. I used some of the last of my CM Americana paper packs. It really is perfect for that Colonial Era theme. The papers are layered on light blue cardstock. Flipping the sketch meant that I had a large blue area on the far right. I used a similar scrap of tan paper to cut 1 3/4" squares. Do you see the small square on the top of the left page? That is part of the indicator sheet included with all the CM paper. It provides a look at each of the papers so you can see at a glance if it will work with your photos. I cut that square as it matched the layout best and mounted it. The small bunny on the right is from an 8 1/2 x 11 paper pad I bought a long time ago. This is just the image of what a paper piecing project would look like, but with a little fussy cutting, it too became an embellishment. I had an extra 12" sticker border with those rustic stars that finished off the layout.

Trail's End

After visiting Petroglyph, I drove to Santa Fe to visit with a friend. Near a museum we stopped at was this large statue installation commemorating the end of the Santa Fe Trail. It was more of a commerce route than an immigration route. The statues were quite lifelike, especially in the light of the fading sun. 

This layout is based on a sketch from the September Worldwide Virtual Crop from Creative Memories. I pulled the Wide Open Spaces collection from my stash. The middle section is the paper resembling a saddle; I wanted the horses and cows' paper for the outside. The sprinkle stickers are some very old CM. The journal box was fussy-cut from the mat to fit the space better. The title box on the bottom left is from a sheet of New Mexico mats and works perfectly here.

The next layout is another you've seen before as it was the 3rd installment of my Guest Designer stint for Lasting Memories in October. You can review the story and layout here.

Next week we move back east!

Little Pictures

My next trip was in October 2019. I flew to Albuquerque, NM for a Health Professions Network conference. The timing was perfect as the Saturday after the conference was the annual Balloon Fiesta, so I stayed to see that. I had a ticket for just the morning so planned to head to Petroglyph National Monument later that afternoon. I parked the car at the visitor center and found a couple of interesting items on my walk to the doors.

This page is one of the Club Scrap National Park kit pages that I made. Scroll to layout 11. I only needed this side of the layout as I was starting on the right side of a 2-page spread. You can see the extra photo and journaling box below with the Peekaboo Pocket lifted. I chose this page not only because the photos fit so perfectly, but because of that little set of squares on the horizontal border. I know they are icons representing amenities at parks, but they sort of reminded me of the petroglyphs!

This is an unusual size for a peekaboo pocket. One of the CM secret boxes included an 8x8 paper album and 4x8 pockets to use on those pages. I kept them for my regular scrapbook pages instead.

You've seen the rest of this visit in early October when I served as Guest Designer for Lasting Memories. Just so you can see how it all flows together in the album, I've included the other 2 double-page layouts below. You can see the original post for the Scenic Route layout here.

And here's the link for the post about the actual petroglyphs.

Bonus Post--The Wright Stuff

I thought I would play along with Lasting Memories again this month. Here's a bonus post from a trip to the Wright Brothers National Memorial in North Carolina. This was a trip in July 2020. With Covid running rampant we kept to family outings. My sister and brother-in-law joined us at a beach house nearby and we took a day to do some sightseeing--well distanced as much as possible!

This layout is based on the Lasting Memories challenge #726. They posted a piece of artwork for our inspiration. I looked at the gorgeous colors—orange, blue, green, and yellow—and put them together using the CM Worldwide Virtual Crop sketch from September. Scroll to sketch #7. The papers are from the CM Summer Denim collection with the orange from the Feeling Bright collection. Feeling Bright was a secret box in June 2022. It coordinates so well with the Summer Denim, an advisor-only pack. I love being able to stretch my pages by combining collections! One piece on here is not from Creative Memories. The little die-cut of the memorial is fussy-cut from an 8 1/2x11 Eastern National paper.