Cypress Gardens Scrapbook

Our Cypress Gardens Scrapbook focuses on the natural and unusual beauty and adventure of Cypress Gardens in Moncks Corner, SC was actually deeded to the City of Charleston, SC in 1963.

The Blackwater Swamp with the tall bald cypress and tupelo trees mirrored in the dark, black water makes for unique photographs.

All of these Scrapbook Layouts were done digitally using my Heritage Makers System so I will provide digital scrapbook tips after each set of layouts.

Digital Scrapbook Layout of Cypress Gardens near Charleston SC

Digital Scrapbook Tip: Here I used lettering here called Antique Charm Collection Biggie. I typed in floral fonts to find it.

The Butterfly House of Cypress Gardens

First stop, the Butterfly House. Our Cypress Gardens Scrapbook shows a huge greenhouse filled with flowering plants, live butterflies, birds, a pond, an arthropod exhibit, and even an observation beehive. Here you can get up close and clearly see the different stages of the butterfly's life cycle and if you are brave, you can watch the bees work.

Digital Scrapbook Tip: Here I used lettering on tags called Butterfly Fun Collection Biggie. I typed in Butterfly to find it and also found the little butterflies as well as the Butterfly Tag that says "To become a butterfly, you must want to fly so much that you are willing to give up being a caterpillar." I also found the copper colored floral photo corners that I put in the corners of each page.

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The Gardens and Flowers of Cypress Gardens

Just a small sampling of the many Flowers in the garden and along the trails. The Cypress Gardens Scrapbook shows there are flowers here during every season.

Fall Flowers - We saw the Bur-marigold, Climbing Aster, Goldenrods, and Antique Roses. We saw a few of the leaf-color changes in deciduous plants and trees. The needles of the Bald Cypress have started to turn rust-brown. Later on we will see the plantings of old Camellias (mostly from Japan) begin to flower.

Winter Flowers - I the winter we will see and small the Tea Olive, Camellias, Paper White Narcissus, Daffodils (Narcissus), and the flowers of the Red Maple, Blueberries, Redbud, Antique Roses and Yellow Jessamine, the SC State wildflower.

Digital Scrapbook Tip: To get my background paper, I typed in green paper and chose the color and pattern to go with the greens in the photos. The name of the collection is September Sampler.

Summer Flowers - For our summer enjoyment there were the fragrant Water Lily, Beauty-berry, Blazing Stars, Crested Fringed-orchid, Ironweed, Swamp Rose Mallow, Button-bush, Yellow-eyed Grass, Elephant-toes, Mistflower, Water Willow, Ladies-tresses, at least 8 species of white-flowered Eupatorium, Goldenrods, and Lobelias including Purple Lobelia, Glandular, and Downy.

Digital Scrapbook Tip: To get my background paper on these Cypress Gardens Scrapbook layouts, I used a photo of the interesting sidewalk on one area of the park. It was Octagon shaped asphalt pieces, probably recycled, and I wanted to remember it for my own landscaping. So I loaded the photo in with the rest my my Cypress Gardens photos, and "stretched" it to be 12.5 inches tall and just placed my photos over it.

This stretching of photos, done in the tool box under the layout tab, is one of my favorite things to do. You will see more of this technique in the layouts.

Spring Flowers - In the Spring we will see the peak Azalea blooms, but there are also wildflowers like the Atamasco Lily, the Coral Honeysuckle, Crossvine, Violets, Big Floating Bladderwort, Sweetleaf, Jack-in-the-Pulpit, Blue Toadflax, Southern Blue Flag, Dwarf Azalea, Southern Arrowwood, Tulip Tree, Water-spider Orchid, Native Iris, Dogwoods, Meadow-beauty, Lizard-tail, Pickerelweed, Southern Magnolia, Trumpet Creeper, Water Primrose, and Verbenas. In Spring, the Deciduous trees and shrubs will begin leaf out, including the Bald Cypress.

I can't wait to go back out there in the Spring to update the Cypress Gardens Scrapbook.

Digital Scrapbook Tip: Here I took photos really close up of the caterpillar and one of the blooms in the garden. I wanted to blow them up to show the important detail. while the rest of the photo is blurred, it still makes a great background paper and I dropped in other photos and gave them a border to match to predominate color in the flowers.

Digital Scrapbook Tip: I rounded to corners of the inset photos to soften the edges by using rounding in the effects tab of the tool box.

The Swamp Boat Tours of Cypress Gardens

Paddle through the watery garden landscape. See the reflections of the Bald Cypress and Tupelo trees mirrored in the dark, black water as you search for alligators, birds, turtles, lily pads and other swamp life. But you will find no mesquitoes here. Due to what the Park officials call a balanced eco-system, the cypress trees produce an oily substance that cover the surface of the water, trapping the mosquito larvae laid there. And there are also carnivorous plants in the water. The entire time there, late summer and late afternoon, 5 hours of mosquito free outdoor activity!

Digital Scrapbook Tip: For both pages here in the Cypress Gardens Scrapbook, I used a frame from a Collection called Old Tackle Box elements and enlarged it enough to make a border around the entire page and layered on the top layer with the photos underneath. The photo corners here were also from the same collections. I used the same green background paper from the September Sampler on the bottom layer as in the previous layout.

Blackwater and Cypress Knees

While the water is clear, it is dark, slightly acidic, and stained with tannin from the Cypress and Tupelo trees. Because the water is so still, the blackwater acts as a mirror as you can see the reflections of the trees in the photos above, making the Cypress Gardens Scrapbook a pleasure to work on.

Cypress Knees is a part of the root structure, but their true function is unknown, but they may help to providing oxygen to the water logged tree and may also assist in anchoring the tree in the soft soil.

Digital Scrapbook Tip: To get my background paper, I typed in green paper and chose the color and pattern to go with the greens in the photos. The name of the collection is September Sampler.

Digital Scrapbook Tip: The lettering was from the Butterfly Fun Collection Biggie and the letters were aligned and spaced out using the alignment and distribution features under the layout tab.

Bridges and Alligator Island

We paddled under several bridges on our Flat Bottom Boat Tour and saw a few small Alligators on the island and one larger one for just a few seconds as he glided through the water.

Digital Scrapbook Tip: Lettering for the titling for these layouts in the Cypress Gardens Scrapbook was from the Pretty Primavera Collection Biggie. I used several sizes of the letters, which were sized and aligned using the Position, Size and Alignment features under the Layout Tab.

Fragrant Water Lily (Nymphaea odorata)

Here on our Guided Swamp Boat Tour, we saw the Water Lily in various stages of bloom. We also got to see and touch one of those carnivorous plants that likes the mosquitoes.

Digital Scrapbook Tip: The photos were cropped by clicking on the photo, going to the effects tab where the crop window will pop up. I used the Copper Floral Photo Corners, used previously, from the Butterfly Fun Collection Biggie for these Cypress Gardens Scrapbook layouts.

The American Alligators of Cypress Gardens

Aside from the Alligators in the Swamp, there are a few in the American Alligator display. We walked a little of the trails but were a little concerned about the "Caution, Alligator" signs and didn't go too far from the boat landing. It was much nicer to be able to see them up close and feel a little protected.

Digital Scrapbook Tip: Lettering of the Round tree rings came from the Camp Scrappy Collection Biggie - I typed in wood to find these. The little American Flag was found in the American Quilt Collection. I typed in American Flag to find it.

The Swamparium of Cypress Gardens

What in the world is a Swamparium? Never heard that word before! Well, the journaling block in the Cypress Gardens Scrapbook says this...
"Features native and exotic fish, reptile and amphibian species from swamp habitats, including common local venomous snakes, all native to the swamp and nearby waterways. There are also representative animals from swamps of the world such as a South American Anaconda and African Crocodiles. The Swamparium holds approximately 24,000 gallons (90,850 liters) of water.

Redeveloped from the original aquarium/reptile center in 1998."

Digital Scrapbook Tip: - For the Journaling Box for the Cypress Gardens Scrapbook on the left page, I dragged over a text box, and pasted in some text I had copied from the Cypress Gardens website. Under the tools tab, I adjusted the words and spacing and added a border. All of the text box information can be adjusted for font type, color, size, bold, word and paragraph spacing as well as margin spacing.

We hope you have enjoyed the Cypress Gardens Scrapbook and if you are in the Charleston, SC area, just this week rated number one travel destination in the United States, please stop by for a look of your own. You will be impressed. Aside from the many floral varieties available all year round, there are birds galore for every season as well as many species of butterflies.

Check out the direct link to Cypress Gardens.

Unfortunately, due to extensive flooding in South Carolina in October 2015, the link to Cypress Gardens appears broken as they are closed indefinitely. Such a stunning location, I hope they will be opening again soon.

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