Travel Journal

Do you scrapbook? If so, are you the type who stays on top of scrapbooking your pictures, or do you feel like you are drowning in a backlog of photos? I am definitely the latter LOL!! I started out in papercrafting as a scrapbooker many years ago, when it was just becoming popular. Back then, the idea was to sort of chronicle your family history, day by day, month by month, year by year. We had great big books, and lots of stickers! Needless to say, with all the great mini-albums and photo processing programs and awesome materials available today, scrapbooking has come a long way. My mindset, however, needs a little push in the right direction. I need to preserve the memories that are happening right now, and I need to do it before I forget everything!

So, instead of angsting over my backlog of photos, I decided to make a little travel album (with no photos in it yet!!) to have at the ready. This way, when my family and I take our little trips, I can just print out one or two photos that are representative of our experience, and quickly journal (just a little paragraph) so that I don't lose the essence and the feel of the trip over the long years it might take me to get to my "big" scrapbook (if I ever do that....).

This is the journal cover (the journal itself is a grungeboard album from Tim Holtz - love these!). The background "map" is actually the Vintage City Scrapblock from Cornish Heritage Farms. I colored it with Copics, then distressed it with Ranger Distress inks to make it look time-worn. The main image is also from Cornish Heritage Farms - 1938 Suburban from their GM Series. I wanted it to look like a photographic negative clipped to the map, so I used a resist technique to get the effect. First, I stamped Vintage City again on ivory cardstock. Then, I stamped the Suburban in VersaMark ink in the center of the Vintage City image, and embossed with clear embossing powder. Then, I used Laundry Line's photo strip stamp to stamp on either side of the car image. I masked out the photo strip, and brayered right over the top of the Suburban with brown ink. I gently rubbed the brown ink off of the car image, removed the mask, and cut along the photo strip edges. I carefully lined up this "negative strip" image on the background Vintage City image in order to make it look like the map was showing through the negative.

The rest of the items are mostly found objects, some of which are sentimental to me - the luggage tag from our trip to Santorini, a German vocabulary card to remind me of our trips to Germany and Austria, a stamp from a letter from cousins in New Zealand (would LOVE to visit there!). The hardware is from Stampin' Up!'s Hodgepodge Hardware. A couple little stamps from Limited Edition and Inkadinkado complete the collage. I started covering the inside pages (sorry, they don't show in this photo) with ivory cardstock that has been stamped with another Cornish Heritage Farms Scrapblock called Vintage Ledger. That way, these pages will be a good background for either photos or journaling, or both! I plan to "embellish" the pages only with found objects from our trips - matchbook covers, ticket stubs, etc. to keep it simple, meaningful, fun, and above all, quick!

Thanks for looking and have a great weekend!