Wisconsin Camping Trip Scrapbook Cover Page with Map

This summer our family took a 10 day/9 night camping trip to northern Wisconsin. We stayed at 3 different campgrounds for 3 nights each, and from those campgrounds we toured different areas of the state. It was kind of a camping trip and road trip all in one! We had a great trip and visited several State and National Parks and trails. I began scrapbooking it as soon as we got home and started with a cover page. I wanted to include an interesting map of the state to show where we went.

 

 

After finding a suitable map online, I printed it out and began to lay out the page, adding 3 polaroid frames down the side and debated whether to put pictures or text in the boxes. I went with text and decided to label each frame with the 3 campgrounds we stayed at, and then listed some of the things we saw and did in that area. 

 

 

On the map itself, I used small banner tags to label the State and National Parks we camped at or visited along the way, and used metallic brads to mark the locations on the map. I also added some larger metallic brads to the corners of the map to frame it out, and added a banner at the top that mimicked the look of the smaller tags on the map.

 

 

 

Here it the final layout - thanks for looking!

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Nationals Park - Washington DC Scrapbook Page

Last 4th of July we were in Washington DC for vacation, and we surprised our youngest son with a trip to Nationals Park. He is a huge baseball fan and our home team happened to be playing there over the 4th. Even though it wasn't the warmest day and we got quite a bit of rain that day, it was great experience and I had so much fun scrapbooking this. I took about a million pictures that day, so I'm quite proud of the fact that I only made 5 layouts for this!

We left our hotel that morning and hopped a cab to go to the stadium. My son didn't know where we were going, but kept asking along the way, and I kept making up different answers to distract him. When we pulled up, we couldn't see the stadium, just the parking garage - but there were these decorative baseballs all over it and he started to ask if we were at Nationals Park. As we approached the gate, we got our tickets out and showed him and he realized that the Brewers we playing! He was thrilled! Once inside, we watched the players warm up and the boys were both given baseballs that they later got autographed. 

I created 5 layouts for this using a collection of baseball supplies by Moxxie called All Star Baseball. I chose this collection because it most closely matched the color scheme that I was using in the rest of the DC album, and I liked all of the red, white, and blue and star designs it included. It worked perfectly for baseball but also the 4th of July.

For these layouts, I tried to add in a lot of little details from our day, including our tickets, photos of the scoreboard, the flag ceremony, and the running of the presidents. I also printed out team logos and a logo from the stadium.

I'm quite happy with how these came out, and they are some of my favorite pages that I've probably ever made. 

Thanks for looking! What is your favorite thing that you ever scrapbooked?

Custer State Park Entrance Scrapbook Page

We arrived at Custer State Park in the early afternoon, and spent a couple hours driving around the park an heading toward our hotel. We entered the park at the south entrance, and out hotel was at the far north point in the park.

We stopped at the south entrance for our sign photo, then continued to drive and spot wildlife along the way. Custer is a big park and it took some time to get our bearings and a learn the road system and where things were. 

We arrived at our hotel, the Sylvan Lake Lodge and were able to check in and check out our room. Sylvan Lake Lodge is just beautiful and we were so happy to be able to stay within the park. The lodge borders Sylvan Lake, which has a short hiking trail around it, and is near the trailhead for several trails other popular trails. It was a perfect home base for us for 3 days.

I created three layouts for this park of the park - 1 of the park entrance and 2 at the lodge. I included a park map (that I printed at home), and a brochure from the park.

Our first hike in Custer was to hike the Sylvan Lake Trail, which we went to next!

Minuteman Missile National Historic Site Scrapbook Page

While we were visiting the Badlands, we also visited the Minuteman Missile National Historic Site, which is literally right across the highway from the entrance to the Badlands. This was one of the more complex national sites we have visited, as it is spread out among 3 different locations, and getting tickets for the tour can be tricky. So we got up early and made our way to the visitor center to get in line!

We arrived at 7:30am and the line was already long for tickets for the tour, but when the visitor center opened at 8am we were lucky enough to get a tour later in the afternoon - we were actually the last tour of the day! Each tour only takes 6 people so we got lucky that day! We first toured the visitor center, and my son worked on his Junior Ranger booklet and got his badge. We had about 5 hours until our tour, so we went back into the Badlands again and hiked some more, got lunch, and drove the scenic loop again. We left there and headed over to the first part of the tour, the Missile Silo, and looked at that on our own and then went to the Launch Facility for our guided tour.

Here they took us down into the actual underground Launch Facility and we learned about the missile program during the cold war. Hundreds of these underground bunkers were scattered all over the midwest. We learned about the men who lived and worked here, and got to see the control panel where they would have launched a nuclear missile if the order would have been given. It was a very interesting tour.

I created 3 2-page layouts for this site (one page for each of the sites, and also used the park guide, passport stamps, and a photograph of our tour ticket (we had to hand in the tickets so I always try to take a photo of the ticket beforehand):

For these layouts, I tried to choose papers from the collection that seemed to fit a little better with the theme of the site - stars, arrows, and triangles - they look a little bit like rockets! 

After finishing up the tour, we headed back to Wall, SD, where we stayed for our last night before heading over to Custer State Park.

Pipestone National Monument Scrapbook Page

Our second stop on our South Dakota trip was Pipestone National Monument in Pipestone, Minnesota. This park was a little bit out of the way, about an hour north of the interstate, but we wanted to stop and visit while we were in the area. It ended up being a pretty neat place.

We arrived at about 3pm and had about 2 hours there before it closed. They also offered the Junior Ranger program, so my son got his book and we started touring the visitor center. We also hiked the Circle Trail, a one mile path through the park that takes you past the pipestone rock formations. There is also a nice waterfall on the hike.

After finishing up the hike and visitor center, my son got his badge and we finished up just before closing time.

I ended up creating 3 2-page layouts for Pipestone, and included the park map and photographs of the National Parks Passport stamps that we got at the park. These pages were also created using the We R Memory Keepers Shine collection, and I used a lot of red paper and accents to highlight the red pipestone we saw there. The final layouts turned out like this (please click the layout to see it larger):

From here we finally headed to the South Dakota border and made it into Mitchell, SD at about 6pm. After visiting 2 national parks, being on the road and traveling for over 12 hours and covering 555 miles, we were happy to get to our hotel and rest.

UP NEXT: Wall Drug!