Celebrating Our Milestones Blog Hop Day Two

Welcome to Day Two of Yolie's Celebrating Our Milestones Blog Hop!! 

Thank you so much for coming by! This has been so much fun. For my second milestone I have done several layouts from our family trip this past summer to Washington DC . I've always wanted to go to the Smithsonian. DC is a place for the walking tourist! Lots & lots of walking. It's all worth it though. My favorite part of the trip turned out to be Mount Vernon. It is so rich with history. All of Washington is filled with the history of our country. I still have a huge stack of photos to scrap, but I've made a good start with these. As I show you the layouts, I will share some simple techniques that I used to spice up my pages a little. I was trying to make these pages simple to allow the photos to be the stars but I still needed some spice in them. Clean and simple is not my usual style, and the papers I bought at Mount Vernon as well as the Washington themed ones I bought later turned out to be quite a challenge to work with, so I am happy to have this many done. 

 The left page is one sold by the Woman's Association that maintains Mount Vernon.Here's the "technique" on this page: the top  photo on the right page is a post card! I used the text from the back of it for my journaling and then matted my photos in white the same width as the white on the post card. Looks like I am a super good photographer! Mount Vernon is a beautiful place.

This layout is also from Mount Vernon though it focuses on my boys. They are 21 and 13, but best buds (most of the time). Again the left page is from the papers I bought at the gift shop at Mount Vernon. I did my best to match the colors; I decided to use circles because the left page depicts a game that children from Washington's time played using a large hoop shaped piece of wood. Below is a close up of the journaling I used. I heard my boys talking about me taking pictures of their backs - I love taking that kind of photos. Now we have a new phrase for what we call them. ;)

 Only boys would come up with the term, "Butt pictures"!

Here is a close up of a way I like to use ephemera: I used this ticket to the mansion tour as a tab. I have some different kinds of tickets that my husband gave me after I finished the layouts. I want to figure out a way to incorporate them. I probably have some more photos that I could use if nothing else. I love adding ephemera. 

Capitol Building. Very clean and simple layout.

This is more of the Capitol Building. As if we didn't have enough pictures of our own, I used 2 postcards on this layout. One technique I frequently use is to add embellishments right onto the photos. "DC" is right in the middle of my photo at the top right. The journaling card is the back of a mini postcard.

 The stars on the sides of the pages were already cut out. I just added cardstock to the backs of the pages to have color show through. I then iRocked some of the blue stars as well as the flourish. Fairly simple page with some added spice!

Here is a very simple technique I use a lot. Instead of a full mat, I will put either a strip like this one or a wide mat that extends only from the sides, not the top or the other way around. Great for fitting something into a tight space or for when you're using patterned paper and don't have enough for that last mat you want.  Sometimes I just like the look.

From a whole other subject here is an example of what I mean: 

The mat here doesn't extend from the sides. The point is, your mats don't always have to frame the photo. This is also a good example of adding embellishments onto the photo. The rest of this layout will be up in a few days.

This is my favorite layout of the set. I had two pages of the right background, so I cut President Lincoln out of one and pop dotted it over the other one. I like to do clusters, so I used some buttons for a simple cluster. I wanted this page to show how much influence President Lincoln still has on us today. The top photo on the left is not from his memorial, it is the National Archives building but there is a banner with his picture on it. It looks like I have a $5 embellishment on this page, doesn't it??? It was good enough that my son came and tried to take it from me while I was scrapping, ha ha. He had a nice surprise when he looked at the back of it. Just a copy! I love how it turned out.

 

I cut the copy out with my paper trimmer, then rolled it into a ball to get some nice wrinkles in it. I accidentally tore it just a tiny bit in the top middle but it just added to the look. Fun!

This page is my next favorite one. It is from the Air & Space Museum building in the Smithsonian. All of the text on these pages is from rub ons. I added some ribbon as photo corners, another thing I like to do to add to my pages. 

Thanks for sticking with me if you made it this far! I hope you are having fun. Now go and enjoy the rest of today's hop!

Oh yes, you would like to see the BLOG CANDY today, no?  I've worked you hard on the first days so today all you have to do to be eligible to win is to leave a comment with a way for me to contact you and become a follower of my blog. Simple! The second photo is another Quickcutz die. Their site seems to be down so I have just taken a photo of the package the die is in. I think you'll love it!

Lots of goodies here: Some felt fusion strips, brads, and felt flowers from Queen & Co, paper flowers, Heidi Swapp floral centers, a pair of Tweezerbees, a package of Prima flowers with gold trim and cut outs, a roll of Offray ribbon, some wide ribbon from Expressions by Hallmark, a frame from KI Memories, a package of large shaped mats (they are under the other stuff so don't show up well), a package of gold/black photo corners, a few chipboard pieces, some tags, a metal heart mini-frame, and some rub-ons. I think I got everything! Don't forget the beautiful die below.

Again, here's the complete list of all blogs participating, in case there is a glitch along the way.

Yolie, http://www.justyolie.com/ 

Yoli, http://mysbroom.blogspot.com/

Sharon, http://scrapblogfun.blogspot.com/

Clare, http://cricutcraftyclare.blogspot.com/

Deborah, http://lovemypaper.blogspot.com/

Gaby, http://gabycreates.com/

Sandra, http://365daysofcricut.blogspot.com/

Robin, http://robinshakoor.blogspot.com/

Marilyn, http://marilynrivera.blogspot.com/

Celeste, http://touchedbyabutterfly.blogspot.com/

April, http://scrapperforever.blogspot.com/