2012 MMDT July Challenge #1-theme: America the Beautiful

Hope everyone had a Glorious Fourth! This challenge's  theme of 'America the Beautiful' was perfect for this week, it was easy to be inspired! I spent time going through photos of places our family has visited for an assortment of the beautiful things and places in America, while attempted to decide on which patriotic song to feature. I considered the National Anthem, because the lyrics are under rated and overlooked, but recent attacks on Lee Greenwood's God Bless the USA...really had me more fired up...and many of the photos I was picking were to support that wonderful patriotic song...but as I continued to review all the songs I had printed out...the final choice was to go with Katherine Lee Bates song America, the Beautiful.

The photos featured are of places in Ohio (my home state, with our county's bi-centennial barn, and the Vermilion Lighthouse), our neighbor to the north, Michigan (Mackinaw Bridge and the Upper Peninsula's fall foliage); Washington D.C. (Washington Monument and WWII Memorial) Virginia (Jamestown and Williamsburg), Florida (the Atlantic Ocean and palm trees), Tennessee (the Great Smoky Mountain National Park), South Dakota (Custer State Park's Bison, Mt Rushmore National Park, The Badlands National Park, Sioux Falls), and Texas (the Alamo).   

The fonts used for the title "America" are 'Blackladder ITC' for and for "the Beautiful", 'LD USA'. The song lyrics are in 'Memo'.

I included the full lyrics, because all too often we only sing the first verse and forget about the rest, we miss a lot of meaning when we do that.

The stars were first punched out of blue cardstock and then a 1' square punch was used to punch a square around the star in the blue. The red stripes are a 1" red cardstock strip with a 1/4" strip of white cardstock affixed on top. 

America was printed on white cardstock and fancy cut and then mounted with foam tape. The little connecting pieces between the letters fade into the stripe pattern behind it.

The quote is from President Harry Truman at the WWII Memorial in DC, it reads;

Our debt to the heroic men and valiant women in the service of our country can never be repaid, they have earned our undying gratitude. America will never forget their sacrifices.

                                    ~President Harry S. Truman 

Well, that's my contribution for the first July Challenge,

thanks for stopping by, be sure to cheer everyone on before you leave!

andrea

p.s. last month Linda asked where I get some of my ideas...well, the simplest things can get me going. So, I thought I'd add a few photos to show the inspiration behind this title.

It began with a detail on the page of the song lyrics that I thought would look nice if I could incorporate it.

I loved the stripe and the stars. 

the first view

a second view

and the final choice.

I thought this view was the best in actually showing the title and not competing for attention. I love using my digital camera to take snaps of each step of the process to check and see "how it looks" before committing to a particular final look.

I never know what may spark an idea, even if I don't use it for this layout, there might still be one down the line that it will work, or inspire another approach.