Mountain Biking in Moab Scrapbook Page

This summer we took a trip to Utah to visit their National Parks and Monuments, and while we were there we spent 3 days in Moab. Since we like to mountain bike, we thought it would be fun to try mountain biking there. So we booked a tour at Dead Horse Point State Park, whose trail system is well known out there for mountain biking. The trail was hard. A lot harder than we thought it would be. But it was quite the adventure and we did have fun. Although I wasn't able to stop often or take many photos on the trail since we were with a group, I was able to get a few good shots before and after the ride, and at one of the overlooks we stopped at.

Scrapping these photos was so much fun! I had been keeping an eye out for any biking themed papers or supplies for a while, and had picked up a few things that I wanted to use including some metal gears, wooden cut-outs and bike themed paper. I was able to find paper with bikes, gears, and tire tracks that fit the color scheme I wanted to use.

The pattern in the yellow paper reminded me of the inner spokes of a bike tire.

The color scheme I used on here - kraft, grey, blue, yellow, and white, I used throughout the Utah albums. I was able to mix and match papers that were not bike themed with those that were to keep the same feel as the rest of the layouts in the book. These layouts also have some black accents in the tire tracks.   

We stopped at one scenic overlook in the park where we were able to do some photos, which turned out really nice. Our tour guide even took family photos of us all together.

I tried to add the wooden and metal bike related accents where I could on the pages, and I was able to download a few Moab pieces of clip art and printed those out to use as well. I used several wooden cut-outs on these laytouts, which I haven't used a lot before. I wasn't really sure where to place them, but ended up layering some of them on journaling cards, and I really liked the look of that.

Here are the final layouts, thanks for looking!

Wildlife Loop Scenic Drive Scrapbook Page

The Wildlife Loop in Cuter State Park is known for it's wildlife viewing, and the day we drove the Loop we saw quite a bit. We drove this loop on our last afternoon in Custer, even though it is recommended to do it in the early morning or evening. There was some rain headed our way in the afternoon and we wanted to get it in while we could. 

Along the road we saw elk, pronghorn, burrows, and bison, and even got stuck in a buffalo jam.

I created 2 layouts for the Wildlife Loop and really just wanted to highlight the animals we saw on the drive.

Thanks for looking! This wraps up the Custer State Park album - please click here to view the entire album!

Mount Coolidge Lookout Tower Scrapbook Page

The Mount Coolidge Lookout Tower is the highest point you can reach by vehicle in Custer State Park. The only other higher point with a lookout is Harney Peak, which you have to hike to. The drive up Mount Coolidge is a little scary as the dirt road hugs the curvy mountainside, but once at the top the views are great!

The the top there is an active lookout station with a viewing platform, as well as other areas for you to take in the views.

From the viewing platform, you can see about 80 miles away, and the scopes on the platorm can help you identify features in the lasdscape - we could see the Badlands, Crazy Horse Monument, and Harney Peak (the highest point in the US east of the Rockies, which we would hike to the next day.)

This was a quick stop for us and took us less than an hour to drive up, look around, and drive back down. The road to the lookout is easily accessible from the main road in Custer, and well marked with signs.

I created 2 layouts for this stop, which had such great views that it was hard to narrow down the photos, but I ended up with these: 

Thanks for looking!

Needles Highway Scenic Drive Scrapbook Page

Once in Custer State Park, we drove the Needles Highway through part of the park on the way to our hotel. This very famous scenic drive offers some great scenery, and is known for it's attraction the Needles Eye. Our first drive past the Needles Eye was in the afternoon, and the high traffic and lack of parking prevented us from stopping. The next evening we drove the road again, after most of the day traffic was gone, and easily got a spot to park to check out the Needles Eye.

The vertical rock formations in this area are called Needles, and the Needles Eye is a rock formation with a split down the rock so that it looks like a needle standing up.

We looked around at the Needles Eye, and also checked out the Needles Eye Tunnel. Since there was so little traffic that evening, we could walk into the tunnel and take some photos in it. As we drove through the tunnel and came out the other side, there was a family of mountain goats on the side of the road! We stopped and watched them graze for a bit which was really fun as they were the only mountain goats that we saw in Custer.

The Needles Highway is a fun, curvy scenic drive and to reach certain areas of the park it is your only option. It's best to go in the early morning or evening if you want to stop and look around. There are about 6 tight parking spots and a lot of traffic in this area during the day.

I created 3 layouts for the Needles Highway:

Thanks for looking!

Custer State Park Album Cover Page

It's not too often that I "scraplift" another persons scrapbook layout or design and use it for my own. But when I came across a layout on Pinterest, I knew I needed to use it for a cover page for one of my books and decided to use it for our Custer State Park trip in South Dakota. Since the original layout was 2 pages, I modified it down to one and adapted it to fit my photos and timeline. What I ended up with is probably one of my favorite pages that I've ever made.

This page was really so simple to make and took very little in terms of supplies or paper. I typed up and printed out a small itinerary of our 3 days in Custer, and highlighted each day with one photo from that day. I chose 2 patterned papers and ran one piece across the top, and a narrow piece along the bottom.

I created the header banner with some cardstock and stickers, and a couple of tags that I had from the park that came off some clothing we purchased (I could have just printed out logos if I wouldn't have had these.) To add some details, I double-mounted each of the papers in the header, and added a couple of arrows from some punches that I have. The metal location brads and compass were added above each of the days of the itinerary, and add some nice texture, color, and interest to the page.

Our trip to Custer State Park was one of the best things we did in South Dakota, and I'm thrilled with how this cover page turned out. The papers are from the We R Memory Keepers Shine collection, which I used for all of our South Dakota albums.

Thanks for looking!