Contemplation

Hello, my sweet blog friends! Today, I'm sharing with you, a layout about a favorite read that caused me to contemplate the history of the Native Americans in the United States. The author is  S. C. Gwynne, Pulitzer Prize Finalist and New York Times best-selling author. This particular novel is about the most powerful tribe in American history, the Comanche Nation, and it's last great chief, Quanah Parker.  I have to tell you that I absolutely fell in love with this book to the point of doing a page for my scrapbook about it! 

Over at CSI, we have a new challenge and I thought the colors would work beautifully with the subject of the layout. Here is how I solved the case:

Scheme: All five colors used
Evidence: Animals, flowers, leaves
Testimony: I journaled about my favorite recent book. 

Before I do anything else, when scrapbooking, I have to add texture and dimension to the background. Here, I used sprays, ink and stamp, and art stones for this purpose. 

You can see where I sprayed the paper with a little bit of water and let it partially dry before using water color sprays and tapping the bottom edge of the paper to allow the blue streams run down the page for a little significance in the story of the Comanche People. 

Here, you can see the honeycomb shaped imprint on the background, which was done in a mustard color and embossed. 

Products:

Blue Fern Studios:
     Wanderlust Memento paper
     Twilight Garden Frame, Basic Stems
          chipboard
     Apricot Blooms, Wanderlust Lilies
     Honey, Lime and Seven Seas Embossing
          Powder
     Basic Stems, Apricot Blooms flowers
     Honey Bits Stamp

Imagine Crafts: 
     Irresistible spray
Prima: 
     3-D Matte Gel
     Colorbloom, Colorbloom 2
     Art Stones
     Mini Art Stones
Ranger:
     Emboss It Dabber
From my Stash:
     feather
     beads

My journaling reads, " Have you ever started reading a book knowing full well you are completely on the side of the protagonist? Then, by the time you're two thirds of the way through the blook, you realize that you have miraculously managed to do a 180 degree turn-around and now are on the side of the antagonist! This is exactly what I experienced as I read this amazingly well written novel by S. C. Gwynne.

Empire of the Summer Moon tells the tale of what man is capable of, in order to survive and retain his culture. It also speaks to man's ability to adapt. The setting is in east Texas, during the mid to late 1800's. Nine year old Cynthia Ann Parker came with her family to settle in Texas. The Parkers quickly erected a fort, but they were not able to hold it and a Comanche war party raided it. Cynthia was one of five children and women kidnapped by the Native American warriors. She later became the bride of Chief Peta Nocona, and their eldest child was Quanah Parker, "the last great Comanche Chief".

Empire of the Summer Moon gives great insight into the Comanche way of life and how Quanah was able to ultimately live with one foot in the Comanche world and the other foot in the white settler's world. This true American tale will leave the reader incapable of putting the book down."

Until next time.....