I've Been At The Glue!

At last! I am back! Apologies for the delay. We actually took a bit of time off and if you follow my other blog at Scribbler Maxi, you will know from this post that we had a lovely week up in the Peak District and Yorkshire, exploring places like Chatsworth, the Bronte Parsonage and the rather fun and fabulous National Media Museum at Bradford. I would highly recommend the latter for passing time on a rainy day. There's a tonne of stuff to see and plenty of hands on things to keep both little, and big, kids amused.

I knew I wanted to keep some sort of journal for this trip. Let's face it - our first holiday since 2005, I think deserves some sort of celebration! :) I'd looked around online at the Smash Books but I had two problems with these; one, I thought they were kind of pricey and two, I wasn't sure if I was keen on all the designs in each book so in the end I decided to make my own version. That way I could choose the papers, knowing I liked them all.

As it turned out, the week before our trip got a bit hectic so I was, at one point, regretting not having ordered a book! In the end, I sat down and at half ten the night before we left, had the pages ready to go. I didn't have time to bind it, which meant that it wouldn't be accessible to drop in a bag but I could live with that.

 

 I had ordered a Smash pen which has a pen one end, and a glue stick the other. Here I made a boo boo - I chose the 'pink' version thinking it was just called that as it was supposed to go with the pink-bound book. Wrong! It has pink ink. Not what I had planned for. Oops! Anyway, I took it, along with another black ink fine writer, and a tape roller. I don't know if anyone else has had an issue with the glue on the Smash pens but my postcards were coming unstuck within a very short time so I am glad I had taken the extra tape roller as back up.

I had lovely time sticking in brochures, entrance tickets, receipts and postcards, and although I didn't always feel awake enough to journal at the end of the day, it was all done pretty close to the actual day.

 

 

When we got home, I cut the covers out of mountboard, covered it with some more paper, and washi tape and bound them with my Bind It All. I had an offcut of coil left and I actually prefer this look to having a full length binding in this case.

 

 

And I've no idea why this won't load the right way up...

 

 

 

Once it was all done, I found that I actually had some pages left over, so I didn't put them in the book and will just use them on some layouts.

 

I also printed a few photos and put some of them in there when we got home, but even this could be done 'on the road' if you have a mini printer, or are somewhere you could drop into an instant developer.

 

Hope you like it!

 



Travel Journal - How to!

A while ago my friend was going on holiday abroad and the idea was that I'd make her a travel journal which she could fill in on her return. Pockets for goodies collected, and spaces for photos taken would all be included. As it turned out, the holiday didn't go exactly to plan with one of the children getting quite ill which lasted for much of the week. Obviously this limited their plans and, although still a break, rather took the shine off it. A travel journal to remember this suddenly didn't seem like such a good idea.

A new plan was needed!

For half term they had booked a week down in the West Country, self catering with no real plans to do too much other than relax and walk and explore a bit. Hoping that circumstances wouldn't repeat themselves (which I'm glad to report they didn't) I went ahead and created a travel journal for them to fill in for this trip instead.

Last Christmas I was given a couple of paper pads and I chose one of these to use as the basis for this album as the colours were jolly and bright and seemed to suit the coastal area that they were visiting.

This is the finished result

I wanted a weathered sort of look for the covers, and they needed to be quite sturdy so I took some mountboard I had, and cut two pieces 6" x 12". I spent some time wondering what size to do. My friend takes a lot of pictures, and although there was no way a book was going to accommodate them all, unless I did a big 12x12 album, I still wanted to be able to get a few on a page withouth compromising on the portability of it. So 6x12 it became.

For the covers, I painted a layer of 'seasidey' colour blue acrylic paint on both and let them dry. I then put a layer of PVA glue on and also let it dry. After that on went a layer of white acrylic. I then let it dry a little and chased it along with a heat gun. The heat from the tool made some areas crack and bubble like paint peeling off on old doors or boats.

Sticker letters were then put on for the main title but I didn't feel they were showing up quite enough so I outlined them with a very fine liner (like those that come with Promarker sets). I didn't have enough letters in one colour to the do the sub title so it became a mix and match affair which worked ok as the ribbons I chose to go on the binding were colours that matched those letters. It was almost like I'd planned it (!) :)

Each page was made from one 12x12 sheet folded in half and creased neatly and then glued down. When all of these were done, I put them together using a large coil from Zutter and the Bind It All machine.

Folding and glueing

Once all the pages were piled together (just before I bound them) I realised they needed something a little extra. Out came a purple ink pad and around it whizzed, finishing off the edges just right.

Purple edges!

The trip away was for a week so I made a little tag for each day on which could be journalled what they did on that particular day, or what they ate, or what they saw - or whatever they felt like writing!

I just cut a plain piece of cardstock down and stamped it with the day and some lines to write on.

These were then stuck on the relevant day's page in the journal.

Once these were in, it was time to start decorating! I pulled out some of the embellishments that had come with the paper pack...

cardstock embellishments

But I also pulled out some other travel themed embellishments I had in my stash, such as phrases and added some of these, like the 'Are we there yet' which I believe was from a Die Cuts With A View collection. As the trip involved about a 5 hour drive, there was always the chance that this question might be asked!

I also made a set of cards, similar to the date ones , with each person's name on it. These were then tucked into one of the pockets created within the journal and that way each person can have their own thoughts on the holiday recorded.

Once I'd decided how to do it, the journal itself came together fairly well over the course of a few evenings. I hope you like the idea. If you decide to do something similar, don't forget to leave me a post and link to your blog! I'd love to see :)