Travel Album Finished!

Not lost, just distracted! It feels like an eternity since I have been active here.  Life is full of challenges and there are so many things to distract me from being relaxed and creative ... but here I am, wanting to show off a recent album I completed.

I was blessed to be able to travel to the UK in June for a family visit and after three weeks of travelling, seeing, doing, tasting, experiencing I had soooo many photos to sort through!

I was determined to make sure that my trip and its details were not lost so I made a concerted effort to put together 3 mini albums to display my experience. And after 4 months, here they are.

I'll explain my procedure with photos.  So here goes ...
I decided to use A5 sized paper as it fits 2 photos, placed horizontally on the page, with some trimming.  I started with 180+ gsm paper then added patterned paper when I felt it was needed.
I purchased large hinge rings from eBay and just kept adding the pages as they were being made. I made a template for the holes so that each page was relatively even.
I found some great paper from Kaisercraft called Check In and they also had stickers, labels and mini, and tiny, alphas that fitted the theme perfectly.
I used any ephemera I kept - boarding passes, baggage tickets etc.

I kept a diary of each day (thanks to special friend, Roby, who gave me a journal before I left) and then re-typed the entries to fit on the pages. I used a textured 80gsm paper which I had purchased from Officeworks for the journalling.

 When I wanted to add some labels or short text, I used the min alphas from Kaisercraft.  Or I hand wrote the text on a strip of card.

I started to write some information about some of the places I visited, that i got from the internet, but that was taking too long so used other information instead.

I punched holes in the photos and am happy to say they don't detract from any of the views.

I cut out some the photos around the main focus such as the telephone box below. I also hand cropped when necessary.

I use map sections from maps I had purchased or found in flyers and brochures.

I added entry tickets and information brochures.

Old postcards added to the 'story' as I retold my experiences.  I added the wedding invites and place cards for a wedding I attended whilst in the UK. This was such a novel place card as we had to send a photo of ourselves as babies and these were then used to guide us to our seats!

I added store receipts. I thought it would be interesting to see the prices, especially in 10 years time!

Brochures and postcards from places I visited.

Menus and brochures from wonderful restaurants.

And I added a photo of my arrival back home and wrote about how I felt when I was landing.

 Each album is around 50cm in thickness and although they are quite heavy they are easy to handle.

I also punched large circles that I used as tabs for each day's entry. I wrote the date on it and stuck them to alphabetical index cards I had.  I found the tabs on them assisted me to know where to stick my tabs!

When the main parts were finished I went back and added other embellishments that complimented the 'stories' and also added a bit of creativity.

So, I have completed 24 days of my trip in 3 albums, with over 300 photos and lots of memorabilia.  I hope you have got some ideas from these photos, as I did from others before I started.

Until next time ...