Charleston South Carolina

Ornamental Iron Work

& Other Charleston, SC Landmarks

On a tour of Charleston South Carolina, several years ago, I was able to take some wonderful photos of the many houses in the City with some wrought iron gates. As I was taking the photos, I noticed that the ornamental iron was not always black. Sometimes it was black or brown, sometimes it was light green, light blue and even pink.


I soon learned that many of the gates were made by one single Blacksmith, Phillip Simmons, the most celebrated of the Charleston South Carolina Iron Workers. Phillip Simmons was born June 9, 1912 near Mt. Pleasant, SC.

The set of layouts shows one of the Charleston South Carolina antebellum homes and samples of the Black ironwork and a horse drawn carriage that passed by behind us.

The large stencil in the upper right corner was a multiple layer stencil that was inked in stages, sprinkled with Embossing Powder in Silver & Burgundy and then heat embossed.

The Title on these pages was hand written with a Zig Embossing Pen, sprinkled with Antique Gold Embossing Powder and heat embossed. Also embossed with the Antique Gold was the rubber stamp "Art Deco" image that came in the kit.

The Iron work in these photos was painted brown.

On this set of layouts, I used the Zig embossing Pen to highlight the actual design of the paper, and then sprinkled a lavender Embossing Powder and heat embossed. It makes the images appear with some shadows and depth for a 3-dimensional look which is particularly visible at the top of the pages.

The circular images down the inside edges of the papers were embellished with lavender eyelets in the centers.


These Ornamental Ironwork Gates of Phillip Simmons' are so popular and so renowned that you can even purchase jewelry pins fashioned in some of the same designs.

More samples above from the Art Deco kit - papers, rubber stamp and cut outs.

The left hand layout has a large stencil of an Art Deco doorway in the upper right corner that was inked, covered with Embossing Powder and then heat embossed.

The two Rubber Stamped images were printed on white card stock, heat embossed with mint green embossing powder, cut out and attached to the layout with double sided tape splits.

These layouts above were done using the light green background paper because all the Ornamental Iron Work was actually painted in light Mint Green.

A few more samples of Ornamental Iron Work from Charleston South Carolina - these were actually painted pink or peach, thus the peach background card stock.

Again, the embossing pen and heat embossed powder to accent some of the lines in the background paper.

These photos are not of entire homes, but just some of the architectural elements.

With the beautiful sunrises and cloud formations over the harbor, it always makes it easier to drive to work with this scenery in view.

These layouts used Club Scrap's "Weather Kit" from April 2003 with the soft pink and blue background papers and mattes with the letter stickers for the journaling.

If you look closely at many of the photos there are vapor trails from the Air Force jets. To accentuate those modern vapor trails, I stamped the Hot Air Balloon stamp on the background and directly onto the photos themselves.

Morning photos wouldn't be complete without evening photos. These layouts of photos of the setting sun streaming through the trees and buildings just had to be the next ones in the Charleston South Carolina grouping.

Using papers from the Club Scrap kit from October 2004, "Autumn Splendor" a light brown background was used to match the predominate color in the photos. The Yellow translucent paper was cut at angles and layered on top of the brown background to replicate the streaming sun light.

The only other embellishments were the letter stickers from the Club Scrap "English Garden" kit for the journaling and and some simple copper fabric leaves.

These two layouts of some of the interesting architecture found in the downtown Charleston South Carolina area are done with mixing and matching a light green solid with a black floral print containing the green.

Mixed with these photos are green and blue felt Hibiscus flowers and tags. The journaling is written on a library card tag with a green ribbon embellishments.

More photos here of the Charleston South Carolina Harbor in June 2006 as the Queen Mary 2 was pulling into the Passenger Terminal.

These layouts used Surf's Up kit paper from Club Scrap July 2006. The printed blue background has a wavy texture that resembles ocean waters. The mattes were the solid blue enhanced with a darker blue ink around the edges the make them stand out from the background.

The Journaling was done with a Gold Metallic Paint Pen on strips of the dark blue textured paper.

Moving on to another part of the City of Charleston South Carolina, the Lake at Hampton Park has the fun loving ducks.

This paper is from the Club Scrap.com "Old South" Kit that was available in July 2002.

The Title for this page was hand drawn and hand cut from some of the coordinating green and gold metallic finished paper.

These Charleston South Carolina Scrapbook Layouts show some more of the beautiful and ever changing landscape of Hampton Park.

All items used on these pages - background papers, photo matte papers, net roses in pink and white, and the light pink ink used to highlight the white roses and the white portion of the photo mattes - came from the January 2011 Personal Shopper Kit.

The lettering tiles were cut from a sheet of letters, then coated with Clear Glossy Accents by Ranger. After the Glossy Accents dried, the letters were attached to the layout with some adhesive.

Scrapbook-Advice.com Tip: Turning one sheet of the background paper upside down, the border appears to be moving from one page across to the next.

Another famous Landmark from the Charleston South Carolina area is the Cooper River Bridge that joins the City of Charleston with the Town of Mount Pleasant.

These photos were taken back when the "Old Bridges" were being slated for replacement and the design for the "New Bridge" was being determined. These were newspaper photos and other architectural drawings that I ran across and decided to use on my layouts.

The papers, cut outs, journaling squares and rubbers stamps were all from the Club Scrap "Architectural Kit" that was sold in April 2002. The title letters were traced from the font card which was part of the kit from Club Scrap, then Hand Cut.

These two layouts above were also done using paper, stickers and rubber stamp images from the Club Scrap "Architecture Kit" and yet they look entirely different from the ones directly above.

Here we have used paper from Club Scrap's Old South Kit back from July 2002. The stencil of the lamp post was also a part of the Old South kit. The photos from the Hampton Park were centered around the gas lamp fixture as part of the park walkway. The Stencils were inked onto a marbled green photo mat. The yellow portion of the lamp was also covered with Crystal Glaze and when dried it appears like glass.

Again, more papers from the Club Scrap Old South kit. The purple print paper of the large Magnolia blossom and Spanish Moss was very appropriate for these photos of the purple blossoms from the various flowers and Magnolia trees in the back ground.

Nothing says Charleston quite like the Beach. There are any number of beaches in the Charleston South Carolina area and here are two layouts using photos from a walk on the beach.

While not photos of children playing on the beach, it's a good look at some of the sea birds, landscape, shells and sand that can be so very peaceful.

The background paper is from Club Scrap's "Surf's Up" kit from July 2006.

I had a number of photos that could be cropped very small so I used two photos per each photo matte. I decided to use photo corners to mount the photos. The photo corners were originally white and I used a blue inkpad to dye them blue to go with the background paper. I also carried the blue photo corners to the outside edge of the back ground paper.

The tags and the white and blue tape holding the tags are also from the "Surf's Up" kit embellished with small starfish from Magic Scraps.

The strip of patterned paper was from my stash and I used that because the blue was an exact match to the background paper.

Above are 4 layouts of the filming of the movie "Cold Mountain" in the historical portion of Charleston SC. The production company had transformed the City streets with dirt over the asphalt, added wooden sidewalks and removed parking meters. It was interesting to see what the city would have looked like back in the 1860's.

And of course, no tour of the Charleston South Carolina area would be complete with some layouts of The Citadel, Military College of South Carolina.

Above are 4 layouts of the The Citadel in the morning fog as it is so often seen. These are not my photographs, but were taken by Mr. Russ Pace, Citadel photographer.

The layouts used were a color blocking technique and design by Club Scrap and their Assembly Line Scrapbook (ALSB) Process. The layouts are designed and put together first and then the photos are added at a later date. These papers and design were from the Club Scrap "Varsity Kit" from June 2005.

And of course, no scrapbook pages about Charleston South Carolina or The Citadel would be complete without some mention of the Summerall Guards, silent drill team and what it takes to become a member. The Bond Volunteers, or BV's are shown working hard to be one of the chosen for the drill team.

Above are 2 layouts featuring The Citadel's Summerall Guards which include die cuts purchased from a fellow scrapbooker who's son attended school there.

The one photo on the bottom right hand corner, is actually a stack of 6 photos in a small flip up album.

These are not my photographs, but were taken by Mr. Russ Pace, Citadel photographer.

Over 70 Themed & Heritage Scrapbooking Albums

Or South Carolina Aquarium Scrapbook Layouts in Charleston.

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Charleston's Beautiful Beach Scrapbook Layouts.

Great Scrapbook Techniques at ScrapbookTutorials

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from Charleston South Carolina