Husband and I just got back from vacation celebrating our tenth(!!) anniversary. He treated me to the most wonderfully luxurious week for just the two of us in Grenada!
When I was preparing for the trip, I knew I wanted to bring some sort of journal along. When we went on our honeymoon, I deliberately did not keep a journal, because I just wanted to enjoy the trip… however, I immediately regretted it. We ate some phenomenal food on that trip, and I didn’t have any record of it (it was before I had large memory cards for my digital camera, and at that time, taking photos of your food wasn’t really a “thing,” anyway!). I planned to scrapbook the trip, so we did take as many photos as we could, but I have forgotten many of the details (it was before I even knew about metadata!)

This time, I was determined to have a written record. I decided to make my own notebook (goodness knows I have enough paper in my craft room!), and I followed my own tutorial to construct the book. The only variations were that I used my long-arm stapler to bind the pages into the cover, and I used lightweight cardstock for the pages rather than printer paper, since I knew I’d be doing a little stamping and using felt-tip type journaling pens–I didn’t want to have to worry about bleed through or ghosting.

To embellish the cover, I pulled out some very old Studio Calico alphas and layered them on a journaling card from the June Cocoa Daisy pocket scrapbook kit (thank you, Cocoa Daisy! — I won this kit in the iNSD giveaway on the Scrapbook and Cards Today blog). I added the “adventure”** die cut with my Silhouette from Ali Edwards’ Pinterest Passport freebie series earlier this summer– it was cut from kraft cardstock, but I colored it with a blue permanent marker to give it the navy color. I added the date stamp, a little piece of washi tape, and a few enamel dots to finish it off.


I also had the idea that perhaps it would be fun to have a little scrapbook-y kit along, just in case I decided I really wanted to do some crafting while I was away. After all, papercrafting is one of my main passions!

I gathered some supplies. I added some stickers from the Clementine Project Life kit, as well as some other random bits and bobs I collected from my scrapbook stash. I also added a roller date stamp, the stamp set from the Cocoa Daisy kit, and my black ink pad. I learned a trick from Online Card Classes’ chat with Kathy Racoosin that you can use the lid of an ink pad as an acrylic stamp mount!

I wound some lengths of washi tape around a Project Life card (from the yellow baby edition, I think!) so that I could have a large variety without the bulk of all the rolls.


I chose some die cuts from the Cocoa Daisy kit and turned them into “stickers” by adding
adhesive and placing them onto some plastic packaging.



I cut some more of Ali Edwards’ Pinterest Passport files with my Silhouette and turned them into “stickers” as well.

I fitted all of my embellishements into this cute Craftmate Folio by Webster’s Pages (thank you, Megan!). It seriously was the perfect size to pack in my bag and carry to the beach (but more on that in a later post!….)

I used another little zipper pouch to carry my journaling pens and a small pair of scissors (I put the scissors into my checked bag so that I didn’t have to worry about them as I went through airport security).

Even though I went to all of this trouble to assemble a little kit, I really gave myself permission NOT to use it if I didn’t end up wanting to do extra crafting. It was just plain fun to put the kit together. At the very least, I wanted to have one place where all of my notes could be jotted each day. At the best, this journal could become its own little scrapbook-y record of the trip! I didn’t place any expectations on myself other than writing some facts about each day.
In a future post, I’ll let you know how I actually ended up using the notebook!
**Really, “adventure” might be a bit strong of a word– we went to a lovely resort with the expectation of lazing on the beach for the majority of the time. We did do some fun activities, but “relaxation” or “vacation” probably would have been a better word choice. But I had this cute png from Ali… 😉
Supplies:
cover: kraft cardstock-The Paper Studio, yellow tropical floral patterned cardstock-Bo Bunny
embellishments: June Cocoa Daisy pocket scrapbook kit, Ali Edwards’ Pinterest Passport freebie png files, enamel dots-The Paper Studio, washi tapes (the Paper Studio, Bella Blvd, Recollections, Queen & Co.), stickers: Project Life and other
journaling pens: Project Life, Shimelle
date stamp: Project Life (original edition)
zipper folio: Webster’s Pages Craftmate Folio (grey)
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