Life is Sweet album - Death Valley

 

Keeping it simple and leaving the page basically kraft except

for the few gesso splotches which does adds something, right?

Maybe. 

LOL.

Anyhoo, Death Valley is gorgeous believe-it-or-not

and needs to be on your bucket list also.

I chose these photos because the mountains are

beautiful, and then in the mix of salt flats there is a

beautiful flower amongst the rubble.Using some

very old Studio Calico papers from 6x6 paper pads

pulling out the purple from the photos love

the ripped texture and perfect embellies from Tim Holtz

and my favorite butterfly punch.

And my favorite Martha Stewart alpha punch - love

the size and shape of the letters and it's just

so easy to punch the perfect colors for the titles and

you never run out of letters.

So you'll  be seeing them a lot - among other

things that you'll see a lot.

Studio Calico - Tim Holtz

Death Valley - Scrapped

I wanted a pocket page and I think I'll

be doing a lot of them 

because I'm collecting a lot of the 

National Park maps and guides.

I want to keep them.

It'll be neat for future generations to see them

and hopefully, want to go see.

 Recollections Kraft and Black. 

I actually did the scallops myself and lines

were needed.

I also purchased that Death Valley coin.

Isn't it perfect.

Got a lot of layers going on using Tim Holtz. 

There is hidden journaling there carrying the red

color and the green, how cool is all that.

So this is a photo of Tom out on the salt flats

and he picked up a chuck which has

been fussy cut out (as a photo) and used as part

of the layering only because whole it

dominated everything. 

Anyway, the chunk Tom picked up was solid and

extremely salty.

Of course, we tasted it. 

Death Valley National Park

And Wow!

It is an amazing park.

The mountains are majestic and so different

 depending on what side of the road you're looking at.

You go around the corner and BAM!

There's that.

 We thought going into the park - we'd just blow 

through and it'd be boring.

 Boy were we surprised and bummed because we

weren't gonna be able to see it all.

Lots of trails to hike and see sights off the beaten path that we sadly,

didn't have time to do because we got there late.

 On a great note, we were sidetracked by other really cool things

we didn't know were gonna be there.

 Fun factoid. Any of you remember 20-Mule Team Borax?

Yeah, we just got dated LOL.

Although you can still get borax and I HIGHLY recommend

it if you have pets. Sprinkle it around your carpets, furniture let it

lay for awhile and vacuum it up.

Shazaam - smells great and fleas are toast.

ANYWAY, they mined borax here and back in the day it

was taken out by 20 mule teams to take it to market.

 An oasis in the middle of the desert.

Not a mirage, although you could see mirages out there.

It tricks you for sure.

 Did I mention the mountains change.

If you see green. That's copper.

 In addition to copper, gold, silver, antimony, lead, zinc and tungsten

were also mined until 1915.

 You can walk in the park - just not off-road unless its designated.

Tom went out to check the salt flat and 

picked up a chunk of it.

Looks like ice - but it is REALLY REALLY salty.

 There is also a neat campground and hotels on the premise.

Maybe next time we'll camp there and explore more.

 Scotty's castle which would've been really cool to see

wasn't open due to flood damage.

It was named for a prospector named Walter Scott who was

in Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show, but never owned the castle,

which is not really a castle.

Managed to catch the golden hour on the way out.

Check out that cloud cover.

No rain for the desert.