Beach Vacation Junk Journal

Memories and more Memories

We rented a van and took Jess and Neal and the grand kids to the Gulf Coast early last fall. We had an old-fashioned family road trip with messes, crying, car games, naps, good food, bad food, hotels, fights, beach days, shopping, walks (runs in the rain), sightseeing, laughs, smiles, and lots and lots of memories. Oh, and a hurricane named Gordon that took away some beach time, but gave us a couple fire alarms and quite an adventure.

I made this junk journal before, during, and after our trip. I just finished it today (the day I wrote this, not the day I posted it). It might get some more doodling added, but it could be done, so I'm classifying it as a "done" project.  Here are a few pictures of the finished book.

Look how thick and chunky this journal is!!! I love a chunky journal. I used the small Dylusions journal and the outside is made with Tim Holtz's Distress Oxide inks, splattered with water.  

I also love, love, love when ribbons an tags, an other "stuff" sticks out from the edges of  the journal. I added lots of ribbons and tags that would go behind the confines of the book. There's a sand castle charm, and the light blue rubber thing is the bracelet from a hotel we were supposed to wear to use the hotel's amenities.

I'm only sharing a few pages, but this is truly a junk journal. I followed no rules and used so many types of papers and embellishments. I even used four different types of photos. (1) regular prints from my digital SLR printed on my home photo printer; (2) phone pics from my Pixel XL printed on my home photo printer; (3) Fuji Instamax photos from my Fuji Instamax Mini automatic camera; and (4) phone pics from my Pixel XL printed on my new HP Sprocket 2nd  Edition. I intend to do a blog post on my Sprocket soon. 

So many fun memories. It was Finn and Shae's first time at the beach, and they loved it!

I can't begin to name all of the products I used. Those palm tree stickers are OLD. I have a painted inked background here with Dylusions, some misc. B&T papers for pockets, and some newer chipboard stickers. 

Junk journals are a great way to use up miscellaneous items in your stash of products and a great way to be creative. There are no rules. We have another big vacation coming up next September, and I'm already looking forward to starting my journal!

Wisconsin Dells Layout

Catching Up on Some Scrapbook Pages

Another post! This is becoming a habit!  This layout is from our trip last summer, Finn's first vacation with our family, to the Wisconsin Dells.

 

What started out as a single page layout (the left side), evolved into a two-page spread because I simply couldn't fit the "Wisconsin" and "Dells" banners on to the one page without scrunching them up too much. It works okay as a two-page layout, but I can definitely tell it was a mid-design change. Hopefully, it worked out.

 

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The first page (all products on both pages are CTMH) highlights a paid-for photo from the boat cruise we took. We bought the photo because it was laughable of all of us--we're weird that way. Especially funny was how poor little Finn had to just peek out between the fake rails. He's not looking very happy, and that turned out to be a theme for the whole cruise. There were many tearful incidents, and before it was over, he sat right in some nacho cheese. It was a memorable excursion.

 

 

This page shows how good Finn was for the trip to The Dells (about a five-hour car ride). Wearing his vacation shirt we bought him in Hawaii, he looked like his grandpa before a Jimmy Buffett road trip as he helped pull the cooler to the car. He posed for a picture before getting buckled in, and in the top right-hand photo he couldn't have been better behaved when we stopped for lunch. For most of the long weekend he was SO good. More layouts to follow I hope!

Junk Album!

In March we went on an eight-day road trip with our friends Mark & Teresa.  All in all, we drove in Iowa (of course), Missouri, Arkansas, Tennessee, Mississippi, Louisiana, Alabama, Florida, Kentucky, and Illinois.  We've done a similar trip to this twice before, so I already have many scrapbook pages from some of the places we went, so I decided to try a junk album.  A junk album is kind of like a Smash album, but you make it completely from scratch. 

This is so fun to work on!  No rules, no templates, and the sloppy pages somehow look even better than the neat ones do.

Here's a view at the side of my junk album.  I cut up a cereal box to make my front and back covers, then covered them with cs and b&t papers.  I used three ordinary rings to bind it.  The red reinforcements are just cs circles, and are really more for show than anything else.

Here's the cover again.  I used some pictures and ephemera from different stops along our trip, and added metal, paper, and stamped embellishments.  I tied some Mardi Gras beads and a tag from a sweatshirt I bought on the rings.

The first overnight stop on our trip was Clarksdale, Mississippi.  Legend has it that at the crossroads of highways 61 and 49, Robert Johnson sold his sole to the devil in exchange for his guitar talent, and thereafter began the musical genre The Blues.  We spent an exciting evening in Ground Zero Blues Club, and it's the first section of my junk album:

I punched holes in the menu and stuck it in the album.  I like it when the pages aren't all the same size.  I noted what we ordered, did a little stamping, and stuck a picture of me with the night's musical talent, Terry "Harmonica" Bean and a picture of the graffiti I did on the menu.  

Here's the last page dedicated to Ground Zero Blues Club.  I tried to use dark colors to match the interior of the club, which was dark, and completely covered with graffiti--the walls, the tables, chairs, and everything else.  I used white colored pencil for journaling, which works great on black cs.

Next post:  New Orleans

More Road Trip Layouts from Vacation

I'm not sure who makes the license plates and sign paper, but they look great with CTMH desert sand, outdoor denim, and colonial white cardstock.  "Are we there yet" is stamped with the Rustic Alphabet stamp set (I thought it matched the license plate letters well) with outdoor denim ink.  I scored the background desert sand cardstock on the scor-pal and then sanded it.