A Christmas Twist

Inside the house was made ready for Christmas eve! There were even presents under the tree! I love the way the room was lit and the tree was glowing even though it was in the afternoon.

As I said last week, this is the page I made for my stint as a guest designer with Lasting Memories. The change is that the door photo that you saw last week was originally on this page in the top left. When I got to the remaining photos I realized that I could add another indoor photo here so I carefully peeled the door off and replaced it with the poinsettias. I love collecting memorabilia and added an 8 1/2 x 11 pocket to include the tour brochure. You may recall that the left page is a Fast-to-Fabulous base in the Season's Greetings collection. I have some paper from this line too so I was able to add a bit to the pocket to help match the decorations of the left side.

The living room and dining areas were also heavily decorated for Christmas. Poinsettias were everywhere but so too were vintage decor like the Santa bottom right.

For this layout, I used CM Virtual Crop Sketch #8 from the June Worldwide Virtual Crop. Because the left page is 8 1/2 x 11 I had to modify the proportions. The large butterfly-looking piece in the middle of the sketch was reduced to just the bell on the right page. (I made that bell once before--it's several ovals stacked together). The sketch has borders around the bottom and sides. I used 2 different borders and alternated the colors so each page is a little different. I did keep the stacked corners--just a couple of scrap pieces from the Season's Greetings line. I also used mats from that collection on the right under the photos. The tree and sleigh were fussy-cut from the mats as well. I think I nearly completed this collection!

More Meetup Madness

The next park I visited was in December 2016. The Eisenhower home decorates each year for Christmas and I was interested in seeing their display. They were also hosting a special weekend open house at the beginning of December with cocoa and cookies in the visitor center. I planned a meetup for that weekend and had quite a few NPTC members join me for the event. Below shows us getting on the bus at Gettysburg and riding out to the park. We gathered in front of the sign for our formal group picture. I still had the banners from the Philadelphia convention so we could get that in the photo as well.

This layout is based on a sketch from the CM Virtual Crop in November 2021. I used 2 Fast-to-Fabulous base pages for this so I only had to add a little detail. I added the dark blue page that is split across the middle, and the border on the bottom (one of the border-maker cartridges). Most of the materials come from an older travel pack called "Gallivant". I liked that I could use the mat as a filler for one of the photos but also as a journal box. I just added some lined paper to the bottom.

The tour took us around the outside of the house, and you'll see a bit more of that on the next layout as well. You can see that they included Christmas touches starting at the front door!

You have seen a small bit of this visit as I used several photos for a layout when I served as a guest designer for Lasting Memories in the summer of 2021. However, I moved some photos around. Check out this original blog entry. That front door photo was moved! The background paper is from a store in Gettysburg called Forevermore Scrapbooking. It's a favorite of mine, and I'm hoping that they find a new home as their landlord made them close the original store a few months ago.  Similar to the Lincoln Memorial page a couple of weeks ago, I used this base to show the other dimensions of the entrance. The photo of the side and the front door makes for a complete outside view of the structure. The title element was also from Forevermore.

Here's more of our group as we toured the grounds. Eisenhower was quite a golf fanatic going so far as to install his own putting green. I got lucky as the wind stretched his flag out so you can see it has his general's stars on it! For December the weather was chilly but we didn't have to deal with snow so the outside walk was not too uncomfortable.

This layout was based on sketch #6 from the CM virtual crop. I used a pack of paper and embellishments earned as part of a challenge called appropriately enough "Picture Perfect". The neutral tones worked well with the winter grass. Not sure I like the punched border down the left side but if you don't think about it much it may look like photography flashes. 😃 I used one of the decorative blades on the 12" trimmer for the middle of the square, and I think I forgot to change it out when I cut the black wave under the "flashes". But it seems to have worked out fine!

Meetup at Manassas

 The ultimate purpose of my trip was this meetup on Sunday morning. Shellie (in the denim jacket) wanted to host a meetup and we gathered quite a few people together. We all met at the visitor center, saw the map, and did our stamping. Then we joined a ranger talk that walked to the farms just around the visitor center. We also visited the Stonewall Jackson statue. The ranger pointed out that Jackson was more often than not sleeping while in the saddle and did NOT have the "Superman" physique as the sculptor created. We went to lunch afterward and then I returned home.

This layout is another of the Pajama party layouts. I was a little unsure about using it because I didn't know how to incorporate the 4x6 photo. I cut the right side to fit the square (I think they are 3.5x3.5) and decided to just put the rest on the adjoining block I like the way that it worked. The title of the Stonewall Jackson monument had a similar treatment but I stacked the pieces in one block. My favorite is the lower border on the left page. I just love the way the ovals framed those 2 uniform coats!

Fall at the Wall

 My last stop was a revisit to the Vietnam Veteran's Memorial. This area has 2 distinct phases--The Wall (which comes in the following layout) and the statues of the men and women who served. As the women's monument is nurses, it's the one I gravitate to repeatedly. It's also done in the round; you really need to see it from all sides to understand it.

This layout was done for one of the Creative Life Scrapbooking Pajama Parties. I thought the Chevron Punch (one of the Border Maker Cartridges) worked well for the small strips as it sort of reminds me of sergeant stripes on a uniform. The papers are from the camouflage collection of a few years ago. The cardstock is Copper. It's sort of a green/brown and I find it works best on my military pages. There is a sticker in the EN scrapbook kit that shows the statue of the nurses. That's the only embellishment I needed.

I made my way down to the Wall. The light was starting to fade already but it gave quite a glow to the trees just above. I am always moved by the tributes that are still left for the soldiers listed here. The single yellow rose is an image I think of often.

This layout was also one of the CLS Pajama Party layouts. I used the Spiced Plum collection (it was part of a Secret Box that we opened together for a CM virtual crop). The border above the hexagons is a Wheatfield border. But to me, it echoed the leaves along the top right page. I decorated the hexagons with a multitude of old leaves from my collection. The sticker of the wall and the words Memorial Wall were from a DC Sticker pack I had in my stash.They worked well on the tags from the embellishment kit.

A Short Bus Ride Later

Though I was done with the Obscure Monuments Tour, I didn't leave DC right away. I took the Circulator bus (just $2!) back to the main part of the mall. I got off at the Lincoln Memorial and decided to renew my stamps there. It has been a while since I visited. I do enjoy stopping here though.

This is another of the papers from Scrapbook Customs. I just had a few photos of the monument and by trimming the "I Have a Dream" image to a small circle, I was able to arrange them around the photo of the memorial on the paper. 

My next stop was across the road at the Korean War Memorial. This one is so realistic I always expect one of the statues to start talking to me. I noticed that the statues were signed by the sculptor. That was a new revelation for me.

Well, I've looked high and low and I cannot figure out if this was a sketch. I think it isn't just because of the simplicity of the design. It's wallpaper with 2 strips of brown (those are old CM Natural Impressions strips that came pre-cut in the kit). I added some of the shoe bootprints--which fit well with the soldier theme. The mats are stone texture paper. That's an old Adventure pack so might be the last of that paper.

Obscure Monuments Tour part 4--The end of the Road

After clearing FDR we came back to our main purpose of obscure monuments. One of the smallest monuments in the area is the Japanese Pagoda monument. Given in 1957, it commemorates the treaty signed by the US and Japan in 1854. It is undoubtedly at home among the cherry blossoms in the spring. This particular monument gave me a great perspective of the Jefferson Memorial as well.

This layout is based on a CM sketch. I'm not really sure why I did this one. Usually, I only save the Virtual Crops or the Weekend Challenges for advisors but it doesn't seem to have been in either of those. Still, the layout worked as I wanted it to. I chose a lot of pink scraps to create the borders on the edges. That goes back to my Cherry Blossom theme. I could even pull in one of the decorative mats from the Eastern National scrapbook pack.

Continuing on around the Tidal Basin, we crossed a bridge with decorative troughs. Though it looks much older, it was installed in the late 1980s. The image is "Jack Fish" who was the Park Superintendent and was about to retire. The staff decided to immortalize him on the bridge. Our tour continued on and headed to the George Mason Memorial (skipping the Jefferson Memorial). George Mason was the author of the Virginia Declaration of Rights, which served as an inspiration to Thomas Jefferson while drafting the Declaration of Independence, so it's appropriately placed. In addition to the collonade and his statue there is a lovely garden (well, lovely in the summer).

This layout is based on a CM Virtual Crop sketch. I rather liked this one as it was created all from one sheet of double-sided paper. I added some laser-cut borders to the bottom. All of this is from the Homestead collection from CM.

We had an option to follow the Ranger to one more stop--East Potomac Park. Having no other plans, I went along. It is a short walk from the Mason Memorial. It's a bit of a forgotten park and only has a few benches and a small bit of grass. This urn was given to us by Cuba (back when we were talking to them). The monument originally stood in Cuba to honor the American deaths aboard the USS Maine preceding the Spanish–American War in 1898. The Ranger told us that this monument had been located elsewhere on the Tidal Basin and was subsequently put into storage. It was rediscovered in the 1990s and placed in this park.

I used another CM Virtual Crop Sketch (October #3). There was a hint of fall color in the photos so I went back to the Hello Autumn. That was a good choice for another reason-I'd used it so much that I had a lot of scraps and this is one of those layouts that will use up your scraps! The border strip hides any slight inconsistencies in the lengths of the bottom row. 

Obscure Monuments Tour part 3--Men with 3 letters

 We needed to walk to the end of the FDR memorial for our next obscure monument and the ranger just couldn't resist doing a short presentation on both MLK and FDR (see? 3-letter men). I always learn or see something new. This time it was the signature of the artist on the MLK memorial. So even if you've taken a tour before, sometimes it's worth it to go again!

The left page is my own creation (it happens). I had pulled some of my "Patriotic" stash for the MLK page. I added a mat as a photo to keep the balance around the page. The tag "Liberty and Justice" was the basis for the layout. It's matted on red and then to make it the same size as the photo and journal on top it's matted on a remnant of the paper I used for the half-circle. The thin border at the bottom is the bar code strip for the background paper. I don't have a lot of paper from places other than CM but I do use some. It's nice when they give you that extra border to decorate the page. I added a ticket (I think it is supposed to be a tag when folded) and then found the 3 letters for the title (pretty sure the M was originally a W). I used a sketch from the August Scrap Your Stash Class on the right. It uses a border maker cartridge to decorate all 3 photos. This uses up some ancient CM paper.

The walk through FDR took a bit longer (it's 4 terms after all). The ranger talked a bit about the funeral procession and the relief panels depicting it along one of the walls. 

I am not sure what sketch I was following for this layout. It might be an older virtual crop sketch. In the beginning, those sketches didn't have much paper manipulation. So by using just 3 borders (beige at the top and bottom, yellow gingham, and border stickers at the top) there is a "frame" for the photos. Using photo corners in the angles between the photos helps draw the eye around the page. My favorite cluster is the bottom left--I fussy-cut a bunch of elements from one of the Eastern National scrapbook papers. The rest of the elements are from Art Nouveau and yes, the flowers really go well with stone and brass!