travel journal glimpse

After months of saving and planning, I spent a week in New Orleans with a dear friend. I had been there once, in high school, but it wasn't really much of a trip, so I was super excited to have a week to explore at my own pace while reconnecting. (And also drink more than I ever had in my life) 

While I don't feel that you have to be any kind of scrapbooker to create a travel journal or keep an art journal, I seem to find myself using the qualifier: I'm not a scrapbooker. Don't ask me why. I took simple supplies with me on my trip, along with the book I'd made for myself. 

The book was a repurposed address book from the dollar bins at Michael's. I made the cover name strip from some kraft cardstock and some Tim Holtz letters. 

The book is a combination of pictures from my phone, my friend's phone, and my camera. 

It's got things in it like the box from cereal I had at the hotel, when we'd have breakfast in the courtyard, plan our day, and I'd work on my travel journal. 

It's also got things pulled from free magazines we collected on our walking tours of the French Quarter. 

Business cards from places we visited. 

Things I found on the ground. 

Receipts. 

When I got home, while waiting for pictures to come in from the printer's (I used York Photos) I went through and put together pages with stamps, stencils, etc. Glued in things from the airport, wrote down details, etc. 

On a somewhat related note, I just finished reading 'The Avalon Ladies Scrapbooking Society' by Darien Gee. It's about a small town in Illinois and it's scrapbooking club, weaving in out of stories about friendship, love, adoption, loss, and scrapbooking. These quotes stood out: 

  “Memories can happen anywhere. It’s not just the big events, but the small moments, too. Scrapbooking isn’t about making things pretty on the page, but about how you feel, about the details in life that are special, that feel good. Invite others to take an emotional journey with you." 

"Bettie shows them several more albums. “You get to choose what goes inside,” she tells them. “It doesn’t have to be in chronological order, it doesn’t have to be anything other than what you want it to be. And if you don’t have pictures, find other images or words or colors that evoke the memory."