Centennial part 4--Friday night picnic

After touring the Brearley House, we all drove over to Washington Crossing State park. Yep, the Jersey side where Washington and his troops landed for that fateful surprise attack. This state park contains another Crossroads of the American Revolution stamp and we saw the film at the visitor center, picked up the stamp and then gathered for the picnic.

The left page uses a sticker that I'd been holding onto for a LONG time. I mean, when ELSE am I going to use a Washington Crossing the Delaware sticker?!? I mounted that on a piece of blue cardstock that I tore with a rough edge ruler (this double wave tearing tool is very similar to what I used but has more rough edges). To add to the water theme I used a leftover piece from a strip where I cut out a bunch of triangles to make banners. I also had a journal box with water rushing over rocks.

For the right side, I used 1/2 of a layout kit that I made during one of my monthly trips to Enchanted Memories. Most people don't think of splitting up pages, but in this album I actually did that a couple of times. You'll see the left side of the layout in a few weeks. I just didn't want to use the left (hot dog) page with the intro being all about the Washington Crossing.

After we ate, one of the members arranged some group games and everyone had a lot of fun.

This is a layout I created at a Paper Loft class during one of the Lancaster Creating Keepsakes conventions. The classes are great because they focus on highlighting the photos, not the paper. The Fun and Games title was created through some older CM letters. The mixed colors not only worked well with the paper, but brought out the energy of the contests. This is another good example of not worrying about the photo mats already placed on the page. You can see that NOTHING fits within the original (cream) boxes. My favorite use was cropping the long photos so that they fit within 2 of the mats on the right page. Those mats become great journaling boxes. You could even layer stickers in that space. I think the paper on these pages is busy enough that stickers weren't needed though.

Centennial Part 3--The Brearley House

On Friday, we arranged a tour of the Brearley House in Lawrenceville, NJ. It is not normally open on Fridays, but they were happy to arrange 3 separate tours to accommodate all of the members who wanted to go. There are some stamps there that are hard to obtain, so this was a very popular opportunity. Although we had people sign up for the 3 different start times, few actually showed at their appointed hour. But between those showing up early for one and late for another, the tours were still the right size!

This layout was created during a virtual crop from Creative Memories. To get people ready, there was a "preview" sketch challenge on Friday night that you can see here. For once, I followed the sketch almost exactly! I chose an older piece of CM with red tones to match the brick work. Then I accented with yellow to match the other predominant color in the paper. I ended up going back after the challenge and replacing the original sticker letters (much manipulated due to shortages of the required letters) with Cricut cut ones. If anything looks slightly ripped, it's from where the original sticker letters were. But that just matches the antique feeling of the page! 😀

I took the tour with the first group so that I was prepared to help the subsequent groups along. There are a number of time-period correct antiques in the home, though not necessarily from the original family holdings. It's amazing how some parts of the house are still in great shape hundreds of years later, including the floors.

The left page uses an idea I saw to create flames. The story is about a  burning log on the wood floor. The flames are actually red and yellow paper cut with the Creative Memories Border Maker system using the grass cartridge (now discontinued). I also found a piece of paper with a design that sort of reminded me of flames, so I fussy cut 2 of them out to fill the corners. The right page was copied off an idea sheet I have in my stash (I want to say it was a page formula, but I'm not positive). I did get the idea somewhere. I just supplemented with what I had in my stash.

As the rest of the tour groups formed I could jump in and out to take photos inside and outside. Have to love the orderly line of club members waiting on their stamps!

I think I created this on my own, not a sketch or idea sheet, but I honestly can't remember (and I only created it about 18 months ago). I went fairly simple using the pale blue to match everyone's t-shirts and then contrasting with yellow (another favorite color combo). The embellishments are few but helps to create an X on the page for flow. The bear head is a VERY old paper piecing kit that I had. I just like the way he's peeking over the paper.

Centennial Part 2--Boat House Row

This post marks my 100th post! (Now that includes a couple of recipes and my intent to change directions, but still, not a bad start!)

This week I focus on the photos I took during a photography class. My first evening in Philly I joined a tour to learn how best to use my camera. I turned out to be the only participant! So the guide and I walked through the Boat House Row area as well as the hills surrounding the area and he taught me settings, composition, and lighting considerations. If you have an interest in scrapbooking, improving your camera skills may improve your pages. I think it has improved mine!

The 5 layouts in this post are ALL fast-to-fabulous pages. On the left page above, the F2F page is covered with wallpaper. If you remember last week's post, the front of that page is the Traveler series and the back just didn't mesh with what I was working on here. I used pieces from the Tangerine, Plum and Then Some line (discontinued) and matching elements from the Vintage paper pack (also discontinued) which matched very closely. Because the pages are pre-decorated, they were done in minutes. Note that on the right page above, I put 2 photos in the horizontal box and used the other for journaling. You don't HAVE to use the page in any particular way. Don't feel constrained.

In the photos above we had walked up the hill to Lemon House and as we walked back down the Museum of Art came into view. I didn't really like the skyline photos he had me shoot but I'm glad the museum was included. You can see this is a sunset walk and that became important for learning how the gold light in the afternoon could be used to highlight elements of the photos.

As above, I used one of the photo boxes for a journal box. Because I still had room, I added a die cut of a camera (above as well but 2 very different vintages of die cuts). As nice as F2F pages are, sometimes it's nice to add a little embellishment. In fact, if I ever re-visit these pages I may add a border across the top of the pages for more visual interest.


What I like about the layout below is that I got to show how the class improved my photos. Because I used a digital camera the guide would let me take a photo and then show me how to stand or change settings and improve it. It's all about what I wanted to shoot. A good example are the waterfall photos below. Left was what I shot. Right was the improvements.

The orange tones worked well with the setting sun photos . And as it got darker, the plums matched the deepening shadows as well. It's good to keep an open mind. I had these pages pegged for heritage photos (like touring old homes) in my head.

Because we are near the water, we got to play a bit with reflection as well. With luck, several rowing teams were practicing and I was able to get them in the photo to provide depth.

The journal boxes above are tags from the Vintage collection. There wasn't much to journal so it was nice to have a small area to fill.

The last pages again show the range of options I found on my camera. To honor this, I found 2 borders that talked about camera settings and added them to the bottom. The colors were a decent match for the pages even though they came from a different line.

Centennial part 1--A Whole Week in Philly!

I will be taking a short break from my chronological album as I have photographed and posted everything I've finished. So to buy some time I decided to present the album I created for the 2016 NPS Centennial Convention. This was held in Philadelphia and surrounding areas and we spent a week there so that our end date was the actual centennial.

 This page was scraplifted from this pin. what amazed me most was that I actually owned several of the stickers that are on the original. That almost NEVER happens! 😀 This was not very difficult to put together. The large letters on top are from an old Creative Memories pack of Large Monogram stickers. Not made currently but great for titles like this. The buckles were rather simple and you can use this technique for suitcases or Santa belts. You make the under strap first at whatever width you like. Then make a square of gold slightly larger than the strip. For example, if you made a 1 1/2" belt you will want approximately 1 3/4" buckle. Next make a square in the same size as the belt and layer on top of the gold square. This is what makes it look like a woven strap. If you feel especially artistic you can draw in a prong for more realism.

The luggage itself is a rounded rectangle. The handle is made by cutting out an appropriate sized circle and tucking it under the case.

The first page is of course the itinerary. This time I listed all of the activities one could attend, not just the ones that are in the album. I highlighted the centennial in red and then added a few Philadelphia stickers to finish the page.

On the right is an 8 1/2 x 11 portrait sleeve. The real reason this is here is that as I was working on the album I realized that I hadn't made a space for the unigrid and I really wanted to include it. I also needed more room on my visit to the US Mint which is the layout below. To fill out the rest of the page I added Washi tape to the top and bottom for a simple border and then added a die cut of the Liberty Bell that I've had in my stash for a while.

So the first thing I did upon arriving in Philadelphia was visit the Mint. I know it isn't an NPS site, but the page ended up including some random walks through the city and the Ben Franklin Memorial, which IS part of the NPS as an Affiliated Site. I also grabbed a shot of Independence Hall as I walked by. Another photo is of the Penns Landing bridge which is near where I parked.

As I said, the left page is the portrait sleeve and ended up being a great place to store my tour brochure from the Mint as well as a postcard. The brochure is mounted with paper photo corners. I thought the red helped set it off a little bit. The right page is part of a Fast to Fabulous set which was called Uncharted. It's a little bit of vintage and travel combined. The page has a built-in border and then a small print. All I had to do was mat the photos. There are 2 more stickers from the Philadelphia pack and their borders match the photo matting somewhat. All I needed was a journal box and it was done!

Tatanka!

On Saturday, after my conference, I chose to visit the Chickasaw NPS unit. I spent the day there and was able to earn my junior ranger certificate. I also got to see bison! (Hence the reference to the Dances With Wolves name). I took a great many photos, but frankly you only need one to tell the story! So my kick-off page highlights the bison even though that was actually the last thing I saw.

This is a wallpaper page, and of course I bought the paper specifically for this trip. The bison in the background provide a nice base for my photo and the little sticker from the Eastern National Scrapbook kit.

Below is my main focus of the trip--I visited the natural springs in the area and completed the junior ranger booklet.

This photo is to show the way that I mounted the junior ranger book (turned, of course, to the certificate). Because I wanted to show the 2-page layout, I edited the photos to make a composite as seen below.

This layout is taken from a Club Scrap idea. Here is the link to the idea page (scroll to layouts 7 and 8). I didn't buy the entire kit, just a bunch of random papers, so I had to modify the left page and only use red on the top. Still, I think the brown works fine on the bottom and I really liked the stack of cards along the right edge.

Oklahoma Memorial at Night

In October 2012, I traveled to Oklahoma for a conference. The Health Professions Network not only discusses pertinent health care worker information but takes time to explore the city. This visit turned out to be very poignant as the leader of the group was a friend of one of the victims of the Oklahoma City Federal Building bombing. They chose an evening visit to the site which is when the memorial chairs are lit. It was beautiful but sad. The memorial was once an official unit of the NPS, but it has been since moved to private hands and is only an affiliated site. (For the NPTC folks, there IS a stamp).

This is a wallpaper page using a sheet from the Creative Memories Brave paper pack. These pages were also submitted as part of the Summer Page Challenge. This paper pack was just introduced at the beginning of July (though I expect it to be sold out soon). Since it had a nice set of stripes already, I just matted and mounted the photos and the site's brochure.

Once inside the site, they said a few words about their friend and laid a rose on her chair. Because we saw the site at night, it was hard to get good photos. I just have a couple that worked and then I returned another day and bought postcards. As they are also from the nighttime view, it looks like they are my photos!

This layout is part of a 1-2-3 layout (but I can't link to it as it is part of a published book which must be purchased). The paper is also from the Brave pack. There are 2 long strips of one side of the paper and then the remaining piece is cut diagonally and layered across the 2 pages (reverse side showing). I added some old rose stickers to match the one placed on the chair. I found a journal box on the right side page which had a floral design. However, when I turned it sideways it sort of reminded me of the way the lighted chairs were reflected in the pool (shot from the other side of the site). I'm glad I got to see this memorial with the group as it really heightened my experience.

The Lost Orders

Between 2011 and 2015, Civil War Battlefield sites commemorated the 150th anniversary of the war. Many of them created special stamps for the occasion and the National Park Travelers Club had a special certificate for obtaining those stamps. I earned my certificate by attending a presentation on the Lost Orders at Monocacy in September of 2012. I will not tell the story here, but I do encourage you to look it up as it's an interesting piece of history.

I made this layout during the Creative Memories Sun-Sational Summer challenge in which we were to use ONLY new CM paper to develop layouts. That's really a challenge to me as I like to jump between all the variety of papers and items I own, but I did stick to the challenge for this layout.

To create this layout I used 2 pieces of paper--one from the Creative Memories Archivers Paper Pack and one from the Timber pack (no longer available). I cut each at 6" across the middle and then rearranged them so there was a "time" reference in opposing corners and similar patterned paper filling up the blank areas. The photos needed no matting with that paper--it's a really great background! The long border on the left is also from the Archiver's line, but from the Laser Cut Borders. If you've been to Monocacy you'll know that a bridge played a significant role in the battle, and I thought this gave the image of a bridge just a little. The journal box on the right is also from the Archiver's line and I loved the open journal book look to it. Especially when you can see the letter on the top of the page and the background of the brochure. This is one of my all-time favorite layouts.