LITTLE MAN'S TRAVEL JOURNAL!

Well as promised the other travel journal I've prepared in advance of our holiday, this one is based on a folded paper bag book, with hard covers and bound with my trusty BIA on 1 1/4" wires which means we can add plenty to the book and it should still close!

My little one's only request is that it be blue and turquoise, I've used an inking brayer inside with some Tim Holtz distress inks to take the card stock from plain to unique! Then added strips of an old pack of papermania paper -think this is the first paper pack that my other half bought me and i've still got bits of it left although supplies are now getting officially thin!

Inside there is a single sheet of card and then you turn over to the folded paper bag, with card stock on the outer covers and a tag inside, I've opened up both ends of the paper bag book so it takes twice as many tags, I've used three paper bags in total!

The little embellishments are out of a pack I've had forever and never thought I'd use they were in a travel pack of papers I bought, it's amazing how by cutting them, inking them and popping them on the page they really make a difference!

I'm really pleased with the front page, I wanted it to look slightly grungier and make it look like the stamped parts of passports where the ink is never quite the same, overall really pleased with it - although he refuses to let me put ribbon on the wire! I'll take away a writing pad, let him write up on that and then stick with DST that I'll take with me, we'll probably add some postcards as well!

TRAVEL JOURNAL - ONE DOWN ONE TO GO!

Well - late posting on Sunday night again! This is getting to be something of a habit! I usually take a big notebook away with me on holiday and spend two weeks craving some scrapping time but not this year, taken a leaf out of other scrappers books and made myself a travel journal.

Amazingly the first challenge I set myself was to use lots of papers that I don't like, now don't get me wrong I don't normally buy papers with my eyes shut, but sometimes those little thumbnails on the internet simply don't show you the papers to the fullest extent, I remember getting most of these papers and being so disappointed, I thought they'd possibly been designed for a 6" x 6" paper and then enlarged to make the 12" x 12" papers and therefore lost their clarity - to say I wasn't happy with them was an understatement. But I truly believe any paper no matter how old, or disappointing can grow from the ugly duckling so that was my challenge - now its done how do I feel about it - well I think having added a couple of co-ordinating papers I've managed to make a more than presentable book!

I've stamped some blank cream card stock offcuts with swirls and flourishes and edged the papers in black soot distress ink (one of my new favourite inks by Tim Holtz) throughout the book to write down things that happen.

I've used an assortment of stamps throughout the book - pretty much whatever took my fancy!

Lots of offcuts and a little bit of ribbon!

Some fabric flowers bought in one of those cheap pound shops and dismantled!

Found a cool 'journey' stamp that I'd forgotten I'd got and used lots of ribbons that I'd cut out of new tops I've bought for the holiday - I never see the point in those ribbons in tops - apart from providing us scrappers with embellishments LOL!

The inside back cover's got a pocket with extra tags inside! So all done - just got to make one for my 8 year old now - trying to encourage him with the writing side of things!