ON THE GO TRAVEL JOURNAL

We just got back from our roadtrip up north and today I thought I'd share my travel journal how-to with you. I prefer to do a quick and easy travel journal while on vacation, and then use my notes to do the actual documenting when I get home. Whether you document your trip in a minialbum, on pocket pages, on layouts or in a traveler's notebook it's great to have a place to scribble things down and not have to worry about it looking perfect. Here is how I do it!

PUT A KIT TOGETHER

Pack a small documenting kit, with essentials such as a notebook, scissors, a gluestick, pen, coloring pencils and a date stamp. I love this clever tin case with two-toned pencils! That little globe is a sharpener.

WHILE ON THE GO

The two most important things while out and about is:

1) CHECK IN  to Facebook! When at museums, a restaurant or even just a rest stop, check in. It's super quick to do and gives you checkpoints along the way to go back to when you sit down to do your notes later.

2) Pick up duplicates of every free booklet, map or info sheet you come across. Take everything! 

GETTING IT ALL ON PAPER

It's a good idea to have a formula when documenting your trip. When you get home it's easier to find the info you need, and it also minimizes the obstacle of sitting down to do your notes after a long day of seightseeing and travelling. My formula looks like this:

• Pictures on the left, writing on the right
• Day of the week plus a date stamp
• Borders, titles, arrows
• The day's happenings listed with the time and a short descriptive sentence.

First I do my writing, looking up the times of my facebook check-ins. I then flip through the papers I've collected during the day and cut out anything that helps me tell the story of the day. In the spread above I found a photo of the café we ate at and a small map where I marked out our walk. On the next page I adhered an add for the restaurant we had lunch at and a text with facts about the lookout tower we visited.

On our third day we visited an amusement park. I cut out part of the park map to mark out the water slides I went down. This is why it's a good idea to take two of everything. Cut one up, stick one in your album! (This is also where I had to document the fact that I had accidentaly packed my daughter's bathing suit instead of my own and had to go panic shopping for a new one.)

On day four we took a guided tour of the very old copper mine in Falun. On the left side I added pictures from the mine and the museum, but also two of the old mine legends the guide told us about. (And also, mishap number two. As we tried to check into our second rented cabin we discovered I had booked the wrong month! Luckily a relative let us use her apartment for the remaining two days of our vacation.)

The last two days went on the same spread since our plans changed because of the booking mishap. We met up with family and friends, so there weren't many clippings to add. I found a map that covered all the towns we visitied on our roadtrip, so I wrote in the dates for each visit.

I will be adding all this info plus the photos I took to our Project Life album. I will post the album pages here on the blog as soon as I can.

/Magdalena

SUMMER DOCUMENTED

As I'm getting near the end of a kit it gets harder and harder to put together pocket pages that I'm 100% happy with. The June kit from Studio Calico is pretty much gone, so I've been struggeling with weeks 25 and 26. I've done my best filling out the pockets with cards from my stash and digital products. I find it hard to incorprate cards from my stash most of the time, because there is a reason that card went into my stash instead of onto a page. 

I'm a huge fan of the tiny collage templates from Paislee Press and often add them to my pages. For week 25 and 26 I've used the 4x6 Photo Templates Vol. 6 set. Our daughter saved up to buy a Hatchimal toy and was super excited when it hatched. 

On June 23rd we celebrated Midsummer in Sweden. Our kids a too old to enjoy jumping around the maypole pretending to be frogs these days, so we stayed at home this year. We had a delicious lunch together as a family instead. Lots of new potatoes and sill ofcourse. Yum! 

We had a ton of stuff going on for week 26. I've only documented the first half of the week so far. On Monday I took the kids to the city to shop for my husbands birthday the next day. They also got to pick up a book each at the book store. I've challenged them to a "Most Pages Read" competition over summer break. They get to add their pages and then multiply by four. If they beat me they each get a toy. If I win they have to wait on me for an entire day!

Happy 39th birthday, daddy! Breakfast in bed, presents and dinner at his restaurant of choice.

This photo below cracks me up! As soon as I saw I knew I had to put it on page. This shows the kids' presonalities when it comes to food perfectly. She's smiling in the front, and he's making a face tasting the dip sauce. She's excited to try anything new, loves vegetables, sauces and any food we consider "grown up food" like feta cheese, olives and shrimp. He's sceptic towards everything! It's a struggle to have him taste anything new even though he knows he only has to have one taste. If he doesn't like it he doesn't have to eat it. 

 I'll be ending this post now with a sneak peek of my Summer of Sketches project that will be in the classroom on July 17th.

/Magdalena