A Prickly Subject

My last stop of the day was the western side of Saguaro National Park. This park is split into 2 sections and as I was nearing the end of the day I could only  visit one. After watching the park movie I drove along a nature trail. It got a little scary as I was in a rental car and the road turned to dirt about halfway through! But I got to see all stages of saguaro life.

The borders on this layout have been in my stash for a while. The paper and stickers come from an older CM kit called Cabana. I liked the southwest feel to the paper colors and the stickers of a camera and car fit the details of my visit nicely. The matching journal box was made at the same time as the borders. I added a little collection of cactus and coyote stickers and a couple of peekaboo pockets to get all the photos into the layout.

Below is a close-up of the left page peekaboo pockets. I used one to partially cover the unigrid, though I trimmed the photo to allow the title to show through.

Below is the right side close-up of the peekaboo pockets.

By using peekaboo pockets I could show the great variety of cacti without having to create a second layout. This will keep my album to a much more manageable size.

Inside the Gates

Continuing my drive along the Juan Bautista de Anza trail, I went to another presidio--this one in Tucson. This restored building highlights life in the 18th century in the west with reproduction arms, furniture and even brickwork. This is a much smaller area than the original fort because the city has encroached on the historic area.

This layout is another entry in the CM Virtual Crop. I went very literal with the layout, and in hindsight I probably should have used a different shape than the heart for the right side photo. The top border uses an arrow border cartridge from CM. I used the part that is cut out rather than the border itself which is a nice way to get double duty from a cut! Works well for the stars and chevrons too! The papers are much older CM paper but are still in keeping with my southwest tones. The tag used for a journal box is actually from the vintage papers but the orange tone matched the paper. And by turning it so the orange is at the bottom it creates a nice flow down the page.

I enjoyed the trip back in time but also the juxtaposition of the city buildings rising above the fort walls.

For this layout I used a 1-2-3 sketch from Noreen Smith. The striped/orange paper didn't end up the way I thought because the stripes run in 2 different directions so I had to play with the cuts to see which worked best (the inner larger pieces or the smaller corner pieces). the larger won out! Additional embellishments include a journal box that came from a sheet of tags I bought and a photo border of chile peppers from a scrapbooking calendar I got for Christmas many years ago. The sun is from the Everyday Photo Decor kit which is a new collection that provides a gift frame for 3 photos. I had used most of one kit for my Administrative Assistant Day cards and the sun was leftover. I think the variety came together nicely though.

Southwestern Life

The word Presidio means "fort". Tubac is a small town just north of the Tumacacori site. Although this is a state park, it is associated with Juan Bautista de Anza and had a stamp from the trail. I spent a bit of time looking through the museum. There are several buildings to tour.

This layout was another one created for the CM Virtual Crop in April. You can see the sketch here. It was a great way to use up scraps of paper. You can probably recognize the tan and red checked papers from  the Tumacacori page. There are remnants of other papers from my southwest trip as well. I even found a similarly toned journal box. The lesson on color stuck with me from the Tumacacori mortuary chapel layout and I found more of the purple and yellow stickers to layer. The stickers were more transparent than I would have thought, but I think the overall effect is nice.

One of the other buildings on the site is a vintage 1-room school house.

I used one more CM Virtual crop sketch. For this layout I used a very old pack of paper from the original CM called "Cottage". The papers were not quite 12" square so this was a good use of them--using smaller bits to trim a layout. I also had coordinating stickers with a school theme and I think they paired well with the photos. I'm working hard on using up my sticker letters. I added the "School Days" letters to the books sticker as a title. The letters are all the same size, but match the variety of paper colors rather than being monochromatic. I believe I'll be doing this a lot more in the future as I whittle down my stash.

On the Trail of History

My travels in Arizona followed the Juan Bautista de Anza trail. He was a Spanish officer who was charged with leading groups of people from Mexico to establish towns in California. The journeys happened right around the same time that the eastern states were fighting for independence from Great Britain. He successfully led groups all the way to Monterey California.
I made this layout during the Creative Memories virtual crop in April 2019. The sketch can be seen here. The background paper is part of the CM Stone pack. The middle yellow (which I thought matched the sign in the photo well) is an older piece of CM paper. On top is a remnant of white brick also from the CM Stone pack. Since this was a story about settlers traveling I figured they would have taken some livestock with them and found a few horse and sheep stickers to decorate the middle of the page.

Next week I will share pages from the Tubac Presidio (that's where the blue and yellow signs were photographed). I visited a number of sites along the trail and this was sort of the kick-off page for that journey.

One of the other sites I stopped at was this church--Mission San Xavier del Bac. It is actually a notecard I picked up with scenes from the area. It made a good addition to the page but I couldn't make this a 2-page layout and still wanted to include the cover photo and some journaling. Peekaboo pockets to the rescue!

Just North of the Border

In September 2013 I traveled to the Tucson, AZ area for a conference. Afterward I did a bit of touring. One of my first stops was this little National Park Site near the Mexican border (I had to pass through a checkpoint to prove I was a citizen before returning north). It's a lovely old mission and well preserved.

The left page was made for a Creative Memories virtual crop. You can see the sketch here on my Pinterest board. Because this crop allowed us to use any Creative Memories product, not just from the previous 6-months released items, I dug deep into my stash and found the beige checkerboard print for the borders. The stickers are also older CM items. I'm learning now to figure out my background and THEN cut the photos. In this way I can crop to the same height for a nice, symmetrical page.The right page was made as a companion piece. I had a piece of the Mix and Match orange left with a nice ombre effect. I chose to add red checkerboard to give a bit more color.

While at the site I watched the video and walked through many of the buildings that were open. Amazing to see some of the original art work still visible.

These pages are also a sketch from the virtual crop and this time it was a 2-page layout. Again, I used the Mix and Match orange papers (this time the diamond print paper). I found the cute cut-out of a mission-style church as a free SVG. It only cut the black lines and the white "stucco" of the building. I backed the windows and doors with colored paper to give it a little definition. The journal box also had some brown tones and I really wanted the pages to pop. After sleeping on it, I realized that what I needed to add was more color. I had some older CM sticker packs which were just design lines and squares. Then I looked through my paper flower stash and found a few that I could stack that matched my purple and red tones. I really like the way it turned out.

Gorge-ous!

My mother and I had stopped at my cousin's house to visit with family. After we left, I managed to get my mom to agree to some more sight seeing and we drove up to the Columbia River Gorge. This is part of the Lewis and Clark National Historical Trail and we had a great time seeing some of the waterfalls. We didn't see them all because some of the trails were a little too wet or steep and we didn't bring sufficient gear for that.

The left page of the layout actually goes along with the single page below (which ends the album). Periodically Creative Memories distributes incentives for people to join as advisors. As a current advisor I'm allowed to purchase one for my own use or to show to people so that they understand what is available. For this period, it was a special project recipe with papers unavailable in the regular line. I put the kit together and thought that these scenes from nature would be a good fit.

The right page is a new technique I bought. The company is called Photo Dies and they make metal cutting guides that can be arranged into decorative patterns on the page. What excited me about this is that the dies make the cuts for you and so you are ensured of having straight edges. If you've seen some of the trendy templates that make something similar you know that you need to use an exacto knife or fussy cut to get the pieces. I am not really good at that and so when I've tried it I've always been upset with my jagged pieces that don't look neat. This takes care of it for me and I'm really happy with the way it turned out. I made this at the retreat house where the machine is so that I could test it out and I'll be looking for my own machine now and more dies!

The composition of the pages was a little different for me. The Multnomah Falls are actually in the middle of the drive, but as the most elegant and photo-generating, they got their own page. I like that this ends the album as it highlights the visit with my mom.

As I mentioned above, this is the right side of the layout. I did actually turn it 90-degrees though because I had more vertical photos. I think having this as a stand-alone page allowed my brain to think about how to utilize the background. I also could have just used the mats in a different direction as I completed the layout very close to the time that I mounted it in the album, but I like this technique better. It helped that the chevrons now look a little like a waterfall next to the title picture.

A Park that Crosses the Line

While in Oregon City, my mother and I visited McLoughlin House. This residence is the original house of a physician and politician from the days of early settlement. It actually was positioned further toward the river but had to be relocated due to land movement. However, it has been restored to it's appearance from the 1800s.

This 2-page layout is actually taken from a 1-page idea which you can see here. The border is on the left page and the journal box is on the right. The border and right page papers are all from the discontinued Archivers line from CM. The left side paper that looks a bit like diamonds is from a very old CM line which actually didn't fit the entire page. That's why I picked this layout--the border covered the missing space! The photos on the right are actually all postcards that I purchased at the house. They were matted with some tan paper so that they didn't get lost on the dark background.

On Sunday morning, after dropping my mom at church I visited the other half of the Fort Vancouver unit which is actually in the state of Washington. Portland is very near the border so I didn't have to go far, but it is odd that the unit is comprised of sites in 2 states even though they are close in distance. I did not get to see much of the fort as I needed to return to pick up my mom and rejoin the family festivities but I did see the movie and tour the museum.

This page is a pre-designed cardstock from the previous CM company. You can see that I didn't really follow the suggested photo spaces, but I don't really think that it is quite as noticeable. The kit came with matching journaling cards and I was able to use one with a car to describe my visit. The other 2 items are just memorabilia--postcard and unigrid. Quick completion!