Scrapbookers Unite!

Welcome back to my 2021 Four Centuries in a Weekend trip. Our next stop was the Carter House. There is no significant reason this house is included in the Crossroads of the Revolution. It's the oldest house in Summit Township, preserved and moved to its current location by the historical society. No battles here; no prominent citizens lived here. It's just a lovely old house. It is currently home to the Historical Society, and what I loved most was the stacks of scrapbooks from the area. For anyone who wonders what will happen to their albums when they are gone, you should offer them to historical societies. They like seeing the everyday lives of people in the area.

This Layout is based on another of Tammy McEwen's end-of-the-year challenges. It's from the February 2025 CM Virtual Crop; you can see the sketch here. Scroll to sketch #3. I used Legacy of Love for the floral background paper, the title card, and the stickers. The borders along the edge of the patterned paper are from the Burlap and Lace collection. The title card matched the sketch perfectly, and I needed one more photo spot to complete it. Serendipity!

The Fighting Parson

Welcome back to the 2021 Four Centuries in a weekend event. This layout focuses on the Caldwell Parsonage, which is a fancy way of saying "house where the preacher lived." You'll remember that I mentioned Reverend Caldwell when we saw the church he preached at in Elizabeth, NJ. He and his wife, Hannah (pictured on the trading card), lived here with their 10 children. 

The Battle of Connecticut Farms Church, discussed in the last blog, is relevant here. As the British soldiers retreated, they streamed past this house. A shot was fired, which entered the home and killed Hannah. Was it intentional? Was it to get back at her husband, who had been preaching Independence along with the bible? No one really knows. But the moment is sealed into Union County history as the portrayal of her murder is featured in the official County Seal! The original house was, of course, burned by a Loyalist mob, but this home was rebuilt on the original foundation. 

This is the site of the local Historical Society, and so the contents range from the 1700s through the 1800s. The braided hair death memorial is typical of the 19th century, but it fascinates me. I had to take issue with the guided tour, though. We were shown a hip bath and told that families bathed in order, all in one bath, and that by the time the youngest were washed, the water was pretty dirty, which is where the phrase "Don't throw the baby out with the bath water" originated. This is FALSE. Please stop repeating it. That phrase and others are debunked in this Snopes page.

This layout is based on another challenge in Tammy McEwen's end-of-year event. This one goes back to the CM November 2025 virtual crop, and it's the same sketch I used for the East Jersey Olde Towne Print Shop. Because it's different papers on the same sketch, you'd never know that they are from the same source material! It also helps that I had flipped the first layout horizontally. This one uses the Legacy of Love pack. I found 2 sticker borders for the right-side page, then a laser-cut border with a similar pattern for the left vertical strip. I thought that, based on Hannah and Reverend Caldwell's family life, Legacy of Love was a fitting title for this layout.

Fine Dining

Who else is scrapping during the snowstorm? I am working on my Hudson River Valley tour from December 2021. I stopped at Lyndhurst Castle, which you will see in a few weeks, but decided to play along with the Lasting Memories challenge this week. I chose these photos of the Lyndhurst massive dining room, all decked out for a fancy Christmas dinner. Who would have thought the fancy dinnerware would include pheasants painted on the plates!

As I mentioned, I based this layout on the Lasting Memories challenge (#783), which included this sketch of 4 photos. I turned the layout 90 degrees as my photos were all horizontal. I am using a 12x12 tablet from Recollections called Holiday Elegance. The paper is rich and luxe, with gold-foil pages on maroon and green papers. I won this pad at one of the crops I attended, and it will feature prominently on the Hudson River Valley pages. I chose one paper for the background and then another for the large 11x11 mat. I only needed a small border (one of the pages is a stack of several nice borders that I cut apart) to complete the sketch. The green and gold paper takes up the job of embellishing! I found a coordinating journal box in my stash to detail our trip.

But It's Not IN Connecticut!

Welcome back to the 2021 Four Centuries in a Weekend event for Union County, New Jersey. This blog picks up on Sunday morning, and my first visit that you'll see on the blog was to Connecticut Farms Presbyterian Church. Apparently, they liked the name Connecticut, and the original settlers were primarily farmers. The church was also the site of a Revolutionary War battle. I actually visited here twice. I arrived and was awaiting Melania's arrival, but she was at Caldwell Parsonage. I went there to meet her, then returned. While she toured the church, I explored the graveyard further. Lots more 18th-century graves here, but in excellent condition! My favorite stone featured the "autograph" of the stone carver. British soldiers who died during the battle are in a mass grave at the center of the graveyard. That's on a peekaboo pocket that isn't pictured, but you can visit to see the layout in its entirety!

I made this layout during Tammy McEwen's End-of-the-Year scrapbooking challenge. She collected twelve of her favorite double-page layouts from the CM virtual crops this year and packaged them so we could work through the pages quickly in December. Each layout completed earns a ticket toward her prize of one of her classes. This layout was part of the July 2025 Virtual Crop, and you can check out the sketch here. Scroll to challenge #3. As I did with another church page, I selected 2 different background papers — brick on the left and patterned on the right. The light blue cardstock becomes the mat for all the photos. I used some leftover stickers from my stash for decorations. The church sticker is the oldest — likely at least 20 years old. But it still works.

My Favorite People

This post is the last in the Liberty Hall Meetup series from my October 2021 trip to the Four Centuries in a Weekend Event. The final photos inside the house are of the butler's pantry. There was a dumbwaiter and the butler's safe, where all the silver was kept. The last 2 photos are of our meetup group. You can see that for October, the weather was nice, as we were all in short sleeves, standing on the porch of the visitor center. We went out to dinner after the tour. You may remember that my friend Deb once ordered broccoli for breakfast, and I've never let her forget it. Broccoli for dinner is pretty standard, but I had to photograph it anyway!

For this layout, I turned to one of Cheryl Even's sketches from Split Coast Stampers (I flipped it horizontally to place the meetup on the right). I liked this layout because I printed the group photo as an 8x10, and it provided ample space to highlight it. I chose the papers and embellishments from Sweet Blossom (one of the secret boxes from 2023). You can see I didn't have as many photos as the layout indicated. I substituted one block for the title element (a cutapart block from the kit) and a journal box. I debated adding more of those elements to complete the sketch, but ultimately decided to leave the border and paper uncovered for a nicer effect. I was so happy to find that little title sticker "Fave People" in the kit, though!

The Gilded Age

Welcome back to my tour of Liberty Hall in October 2021. Additional rooms downstairs included the parlor and game rooms. I love the decor in here, from the chandeliers to the family photo collections on the side table. And that grammophone! I could get comfortable in here...

This layout is based on the Meggan and Tessa Power Hour class from September 2024. You can watch the video tutorial here (and look at their website to download a paper copy of the instructions). I used paper and embellishments from the Shabby Chic collection (an ancient secret box — possibly the second or third mystery box). Although the rooms are not shabby, the distressed floral print and the border with the baubles on a chain celebrate the spirit of the Gilded Age. The embellishments feature a touch of foil, making the page sparkle. I used a fairly dark background, so I chose a white gel pen to journal.

Give Me Liberty

Welcome back to the 2021 Union County Four Centuries in a Weekend event. My last stop for Saturday was Liberty Hall. I planned another meetup with our NPTC club members, as I had in 2019. This time, however, I was determined to join the tour. The blue house on the left page is the visitor center. Liberty Hall is the yellow house on the right page. Construction of the initial house (14 rooms) began in 1760, with the original owner serving in the Continental Congress and as New Jersey's first governor. The house passed through several other families before returning to a niece of the original owner. By the late 1800s, there was a push to expand the house, and it now stands at 50 rooms! 

By the early 1900s, the family started conservation and the creation of a museum, buying back period pieces from the original owners. The tours for the Four Centuries event are free. Unfortunately, they also only cover the garden and the first floor of the house. If you want the upstairs, you must purchase the whole tour on another weekend. I've seen so many old houses that I doubt I will return to see the rest. You can see a few of the rooms below, and you will see more in the following blog entries.

This layout was made for the CM November 2025 virtual crop. Scroll to sketch #4. The left page is mostly exterior photos, while the right side focuses on interior images, including the dining room set for a Halloween Party (we toured in October, remember). When looking through my collections, I decided on the Burlap and Lace collection, which had previously been a secret box. There were 2 packs of paper, and the lacy prints worked best for this layout. I used three tones of lace paper--white, pink, and brown. Those were layered on soft ivory cardstock. I used border stickers and a few other embellishments from the kit to round out the pages.